


neither rain, shine, sleet, snow, heat, gloom nor slaughter shall keep a courier down

by delurks



Series: beyond the borderlands [10]
Category: The Yogscast
Genre: Accidental Baby Acquisition, Alternate Universe, Attempted Murder, Borderlandscast, Broken Bones, Explosives, Finger Gun Wars, Gen, Guns, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Murphy's Law, Online Friendship, Vehicles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-07
Updated: 2016-06-07
Packaged: 2018-07-11 02:23:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 53,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7022731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/delurks/pseuds/delurks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>pandora’s postal service is dedicated to delivering your mail, no matter the weather, location, hazards, delivery type or risking the death of our famous couriers in the process! we guarantee that your mail will arrive, even if we have to go through fifty couriers to complete the order! this is the pandoran postal service guarantee. we may not get your mail to you on time or always in one piece but it’ll get there in the end!</p><p>in the case of special and unusual deliveries, only our best couriers are entrusted with the job. pandora’s postal service does not cover any personal losses, damages or harm during delivery incurred by or to couriers during a job. this includes run-ins with vault hunters, bandits, citizens, wildlife or pirates (click to expand whole list).</p><p>for more information, please don’t hesitate to contact our office, located on pandora’s east coast at these coordinates!</p>
            </blockquote>





	neither rain, shine, sleet, snow, heat, gloom nor slaughter shall keep a courier down

**Author's Note:**

> insert the usual warning for guns and violence. there’s no other warnings that i can think of aside from those two (except for attempted murder via explosives at some point but that shouldn't be surprising).

A fifteen year old boy bleakly stares down the road looming ahead of him. His brand new courier’s uniform is already covered in a fine layer of dust. Not even half an hour has passed since he’s left the post office.

The once pristine cream color is now tainted with a muddy brown that belongs to the gunk scraped out from between the grooves of a technical’s tires. He’d learned that it’s pointless to try to sweep it away, smearing the residue all over his palm. Much to his dismay, there’s no place close by where he can wash his hand clean.

Matt swallows, putting his dirty hand back on the accelerator. With agonising determination, he gently revs the engine of the Stingray, earning a high-pitched whirring from the twin fans sitting behind his boot. He leans forward, settling on the seat and lets the hoverbike take him down the ill-frequented road amidst more dust.

It’s not comforting that he’s nowhere near the first house. On the map, the initiate’s run looks simple: a clearly marked trail that winds through abandoned countryside and stretches of unbroken desert between lone homesteads and middling, sleepy towns.

Easy, get from Point A to Point B and deliver all the mail along the way to the right residents. What’ll actually happen on the trail is a different story.

All the older couriers have colorful stories of their own to tell. He’d spent the last hour before setting out absorbing horrible tales of giant skags leaping out from the low scrub to swallow wayward travelers in one bite, of skyscraper sized desert Drifters punching Monster-sized holes in the ground as they bore down on their prey, and of ghost gangs that prowled the silent highways at night to spook tired, unsuspecting drivers. There’s even rumours of aliens, tall white humanoids, ghastly looking figures left behind to guard abandoned ruins.

Also, not to mention the hibernating rakk hives that could awaken in a heartbeat to charge down those that disturbed their sleep, crushing any offenders into a bloody pulp under their trunk-like feet to leave them as fresh pickings for the rakks that lived inside their humped backs.

Katie had run the route a week ago. She’d just scoffed at all the lies they tried to feed her beforehand.

“It’s bullshit, they’re just trying to see if you’re really cut out to be a courier! Don’t let any of it scare you, it’s actually pretty quiet so long as you stick to the route,” had been her rather sensible if stern sounding advice.

Matt is going to try to believe her because not even ten minutes in, he’d found out that wild skags are not the horrid beasts that could breathe fire or could stomp a town flat and rakks aren’t necessarily man-eating creatures that fired acidic spikes the second they saw him.

He’s a little ashamed (and disappointed) to have fallen for the stories so easily. That’s what he gets for not having ever set foot outside of the town he’d grown up in.

The rakk hives sound pretty legitimate though. He avoids anything that looks like a hole-ridden hump, never letting his Stingray come within a metre of anything resembling as much.

Is he cut out for the job of being a courier? He likes to think he is. This has been his dream calling ever since he was five years old and ran around wearing his parent’s ratty hand-me-down of a courier shirt. It’d been several sizes too big for him so he’d practically tripped over it as he’d toddled around while dressed in it. He still loves it though. It’s hanging off a wire hanger at the back of his closet, collecting dust like everything else crammed into there.

Maybe if he ever has kids (whether through adoption or not), he’ll pass it down to them. It can be a family heirloom so he can make his descendants think he’s nuts or something. That’s right, great-great-great-grandfather Matt is the family member responsible for passing down a ratty-tatty shirt for no reason.

The calling is also in his blood. Almost his entire family on both sides have been couriers at one point or another, or took up a position within the postal service once they became of age.

His retired parents like to joke at family reunions that they met in the break room and well, before they knew it, they were getting married and he was on the way a few months later.

Katie, his best friend ever since they met in kindergarten, also dreamed of becoming one. Matt hadn’t been able to help bragging and together, they’d fended off a couple of other children for picking on him since he’d been wearing said shirt to school. It’d been hard to stop them from becoming inseparable after that or their families from becoming close to the point of knowing each other on sight.

Since she turned fifteen first, it made sense that she’d attempt the initiate’s run before him. Given that she’s also amazing, she’d since told him all about it while they’d had lunch and put most of his fears to rest.

“All you have to do is deliver all the letters and log them into the ECHO device they give you, that’s it! No obstacle courses, no death rallies, just a simple delivery run.” A stern look from her had told her that Matt had better not chicken out.

He’d crossed his heart and sworn not to, trying not to choke on his sandwich because the only other option had been not turning up and he’d rather shoot himself instead than miss it.

That said, he is armed with a gun. He’d spent the following weekend brushing up on his shooting skills, aided by Katie. While he’s no stranger to guns thanks to coming from a family who liked the taste of wild skag meat (it’s best if it’s freshly slaughtered, according to his aunt and uncle located out west), a good gun cost a small fortune.

In his possession is a cheap Tediore plastic block of a shotgun that exploded wherever he threw it, only for a digistruct replica to appear in his hand shortly after. The shots don’t always hit the target dead-on but that’s made up for by the reloading blast that other guns certainly lacked.

He’d tried out Katie’s Jakobs pistol and thought long and hard about swapping; he’d gone with his original gun in the end, despite the selection his potential boss had offered to him. Her gun certainly didn’t have any smartass jokes written on it either.

‘Baby’s first gun’ is crudely scribbled on the side of his shotgun in black sharpie marker, thanks to his parents’ great sense of humor.

In any case, here he is scanning his surroundings for any potential threats as he cruises towards the highway that looked as if a bunch of rakk hives had thrown a dance party on top of it. There are potholes everywhere.

He is glad the Stingray is built to hover, resulting in a bunch of dipping and rising motions as it flies over them. Driving over them on anything with wheels would be hell.

That said, the Stingray is a hunk of junk that makes a funny noise if he pushes it too much so he’s never quite at top speed. The seat starts to jiggle uncomfortably if he’s not fully seated on top of it, like a bolt’s loose underneath. He’s no mechanic so he can’t simply dismantle it to have a look.

At the back of his mind, he has a feeling that they’d given him one of the older ones so that if anything happened to it (and him, by extension), it’s not a major loss. They’d even assured him that it’s in ‘tip-top condition’ when he’d asked. ‘Well broken in for the newbies,’ said another smirking courier with black hair and smarmy-looking grin that Matt instantly disliked.

In the two leather saddlebags just behind the driver’s seat are about thirty people’s mail. Just letters but still, the fact that he’s carrying actual _mail_ makes his head swim with elation. There’s no dummy parcel amongst them and if he fucks up, he’s also losing the real deal.

He has only one chance at this. If he fails, well, he can always try again but he’s not sure if he can handle the shame of failing something he’s been working towards for the the past ten years of his life. There’s also looking Katie, both their families and his future co-workers in the eye after to contend with.

Well, they never said it’d be _easy._

For the sake of not having to die a gruesome death out here or call for help and fail the run, Matt sends out a prayer. A tiny one. He's not religious but he’d definitely appreciate any sort of help from any higher being who happens to take pity on him at that moment.

If divine intervention fails, he still has the Tediore shotgun his parents gifted him. It’s comforting to know that while he’s probably not going to use it on this run, it’s still nice that it’s sitting in his inventory, waiting just in case like a faithful companion.

Scuffling noises in the dirt nearby draw his attention. Matt swings his head around in alarm, only to see a couple of adult skags pawing at the dirt.

They lift their round, armoured heads up survey him with eyes almost hidden behind protective plates. When he guns the Stingray’s engines for another burst of speed, they jerk back from the sound, apparently undecided on whether or not he’s a threat.

It’s only two bored skags, by the looks of things. Even if they haven’t attacked him yet, Matt decides to hightail it before they can think he looks appetising enough to attack.

The Stingray lazily drifts across the road as the skags drop back, deciding that it’s not worth the effort to chase him down.

It’s a clear, sunny and cloudless day. His ride is going fast enough in that he’s graced with a middling breeze that he lets himself appreciate. The weather on Pandora doesn’t ever get any better than this. Having been born on this planet, he’s grown up knowing how to trust his judgement when it came to the temperamental seasons. Katie can also pretty much do the same.

It’s handy, especially when it came to his turn to fetch the laundry and there’s the telltale spine tingling feel to the air, accompanying a sense of excitement he can’t explain and the heavy, earthen smell of rain before any grey thunderclouds began to gather in the distance and precious rain poured down from the heavens a couple hours later.

His grandfather has the same knack. It ‘skipped generations every now and then’, he claims while proudly ruffling Matt’s hair.

The road runs ruler-straight so Matt spends the time letting his mind wander, like how to announce his pass of the run to his family. Maybe over dinner? Should he do it ever so casually? Or call for attention first?

It’s how he doesn’t see the truck barrelling at him until the truck’s horn blares out a warning, the sound of the foghorn exploding out of the silence.

Eyes widening as he’s pulled out of his daydream, Matt instinctively wrenches the Stingray to the left, putting all his weight into the turn instead of jumping out of his skin.

The truck practically grazes him, the metal on the side of the truck kissing the fabric of his shorts. If he’d been in a lighter vehicle, he’d have been spun around silly. In the wake of the near-miss, the Stingray corrects itself automatically.

He'd passed close enough to the truck to reach over and touch it. Without a doubt, if he had, it’d have shaved the skin of his palm right off with how fast it’d been going.

Mind numb from the shock of having almost _died,_ Matt straightens up, his heart pounding behind his eyes and in his ears. When he takes a hand off a handlebar, he leaves the wet imprint of his hand behind on the dust and sweat stained rubber grip. He wipes the hand on his shorts, not caring if his shorts get any dirtier (if such a thing is possible).

The other driver is shaking a fist at him but keeps going. Matt turns back around to face the front, swallowing his heart. That’d been awfully close. Fucker. That truck had taken up both lanes.

There’s technically a speed limit and road rules that nobody on this planet cared about since there’s nobody out in the sticks to enforce the law. The corporations and the few remaining sheriffs had long since given up, so it’s only ever a major issue in the cities or where the law is a proper presence.

He speeds up again, his Stingray obeying the need for speed. Turning had cut his speed right down to a crawl and he’s sure that he’s wasted enough time already on his nonsense. He’ll have to be more careful. Right, no more daydreaming, there’s plenty of time for that later.

The good news is that he can see the first house on the horizon set behind a barbed wire fence, right on top of a hill.  The Stingray has no problems going up the hill that would have posed a problem to wheeled vehicles, it’s that steep.

The bad and sobering news is that he has twenty-nine houses left to. According to his map, there’s quite a bit of desert between this one and the next house.

If he wants to be optimistic, being covered in sand beats being covered in dirt for a change. The downside is that he gets to watch it all get dumped on his bedroom floor after peeling his socks off.

He heaves a morose sigh while coasting up to the gate and honks the Stingray’s horn, seeing as the mailbox is tipped over on the ground and no proper courier would dare to leave mail out in the open.

A family of five poke their heads out of the front door of their farmhouse, their wary expressions giving way to relief, then joy. They shuffle over across their barren front yard to him. A pet skag tugs on its leash, huffing in frustration as it tries to reach him through the fence. The jaws close and shut. One kid pets it on the head as they pass, causing it to roll onto its back, demanding more petting.

Matt hands over the letters by passing them through the bars in the gate and logs the time and date of the handover into his courier’s ECHO device. His leg is stretched out on the ground to stop the Stingray from drifting out from underneath him. There’s the stand under the Stingray that he doesn’t want to bother with, seeing as he’s only here for another minute or so.

It’s only letters and yet, the oldest looking adult (resembling a brown, shrivelled prune in terms of facial features) looks like they’ve just won the lottery. Their face is lighting up as they flip the envelope open and extract the page of writing within it, knobbly, vein-lined hands shakily unfolding it. One of the middle-aged adults perches cracked reading glasses onto their nose for them, the rest crowding around to peer at it.

Sensing that he’s no longer needed, he settles back onto his ride with a suppressed smile and an imaginary pat on the back.

The family notices him. They warmly thank him, wishing him luck on the rest of the run. One of the kids shyly gives him an animal cookie (roughly shaped like a dog) from the box they’re clutching. Surprised by the kind gesture, Matt takes it, thanking them in turn.

He eats it once he’s hit the road again. It tastes sweet, if a little stale but the chocolate chips melt in his mouth all too easily. Maybe this isn’t so bad after all. Crumbs join the layer of gunk on his shorts and shirt.

\--

The congratulatory party his parents are throwing for him spills out into the street, spanning half the backyard and the porch. They’ve invited his neighbors and his neighbors’ neighbors so that all in all, there are about thirty people all gathered around a single barbeque and grill. Everybody is deep in the process of enthusiastically filling their bellies with food and drink. Matt is one of them.

After the proud speech his parents had made and enough mingling to last his social quota for weeks, he’s now on the hunt for Katie. He muscles his way through the crowd, bearing offerings in the form of hot skag meat rolls and chilled soft drink cans.

A glimpse of familiar red catches his eye; he crosses the yard at a brisk walk, trying hard not to power walk or risk tripping on all the gaudy yard ornaments (each bearing trays of refreshments) his parents have set out.

Katie is tucked behind a wall beside the garden (if a depressing patch of dirt with shoddy bits of fencing crudely penning it in can be called a garden) in a quiet corner of the backyard. As Matt approaches her, people pause gossiping to offer their congratulations.

“Looks like we’ll see you cruising around on a Stingray everyday now!” His uncle boasts, lifting up his bottle of rakk ale to acknowledge him with a gold toothed grin.

“I’m only a newbie, so I doubt it-” Matt modestly begins. He’s lost count of how many times he’s said that already.

“Nonsense, once a courier, always a courier!” His possibly once removed barrel-chested aunt slaps him on the back with a chapped, browning hand and almost sends him and the rolls in his hands flying.

He somehow catches them and cradles them close to his chest, looking to flee before his face can get any redder. His aunt turns back to the conversation to go on about how proud she is of him and hopes that her children will also follow the proud family tradition.

Having noticed his dilemma, Katie rescues him by striding over. She pries the soft drinks out of his hands before dragging him off to sanctuary.

She’s still in her courier’s outfit, the long sleeves rolled up all the way to her arms, showing off all the muscle there. Matt’s trying to get more muscle of his own but it’s still a work in progress. Dirt stains almost every bit of visible skin. The goggles slung around her neck aren’t much cleaner. Still, she tucks a strand of red hair back behind her ears, beaming at him.

Already half a head taller than him, she has to peer down to do so. He’s doing some catching up of his own, already having outgrown the boots he’d worn last year. His birthday wish had been to get taller than her (or at least, his parents).

Belatedly, Matt realises that he’ll soon be covered in dust every single day. It's not a prospect that he likes but one that he’ll have to learn to live with if he wants to keep his new job. A bit of dirt never hurt anyone.

“You get used to it,” She informs him, looking him over once she’s set the drinks down on the ground beside them.

He looks down and also realises that she’s thinking pretty much the same thing since he is also covered in dirt, sand and dust from head to toe. Even his new boots have a coarse layer of crap stuck to them. The pattern of his plaid socks are lost and will never be the same.

Grinning, he hands her one of the still warm rolls. She takes it and an offered napkin, biting down on the roll and uttering an absolutely content sound after.

“I haven’t had anything to eat in _hours_ ,” She sighs appreciatively once that mouthful is swallowed. The rest goes the same way. Grinning, Matt hands her another, having foreseen how hungry she might have gotten. Delivering mail is hard work.

“Did you just get back from a shift?” Matt asks, munching down on his own roll.

They sit down on the wall, letting their legs stretch out. The meat is tender and not too tough, cooked to perfection. The flaking, brittle and golden pastry has a satisfying crunch to it. He only wishes that there was sauce to go with the roll, but the sauce had run out long ago when he’d tried the bottles left beside the grill.

“I was worried I’d be late but I needn’t have, since _you_ were late to your own party.” Katie nudges him, grinning. She waves to her family who were looking around for her. Seeing her with Matt, they grin and wave (he waves back) and leave her be.

“I didn’t realise there’d be a party!” Matt retorts, letting himself be nudged. “Or that I’d be late to it.” He tries not to spit crumbs at her in his eagerness to down something that isn’t rations.

The last thing he ate were two large ration bars nearing their expiry dates and the animal cookie that kid had given him. Chugging two to three bottles of water en route doesn’t count either (even if it caused him to take a leak by the side of the road, hoping desperately that he wouldn’t get ambushed by anything as he willed his bladder to empty faster).

“Okay, I can’t take it anymore! I have to confess something.” Katie wipes her greasy hands on her shirt (not like it matters much when it's getting washed later) and turns to him with a sheepish look.

Uh oh. Matt raises both of his eyebrows, continuing to munch away. He already knows about her not liking Surgeon Why. No matter how many times he’s tried to get her to watch it, her answer will always be a resounding ‘no’. It’s a bit heartbreaking, really, but that’s hardly going to stop them from still being best friends.

“What?” It comes out partially muffled, seeing as he’s found a bit of chewy meat that refuses to let itself be macerated.

Putting her hands together, Katie takes a deep breath before confessing, “I knew the party was going to happen.”

“Katie, _you- what_?” Matt jumps to his feet, staring at her. The roll almost goes flying out of his hand. Somehow, he keeps a hold of it. He crushes it instead. “Shit,” He mutters, glancing at the resulting shower of pastry and meat bits pouring from his fist like the grains of sand falling through an hourglass.

“Your parents let me in on it!” She holds up both of her hands, looking defensive.

“What if I’d _failed_?” He can’t help but continue staring at her in mild shock. That would explain why the party had been waiting for him once he had come home, breathless and exhilarated from having completed the run. It’d all been _planned_. He’d been too high on endorphins to notice how everything had all just seemed ready to go.

His parents must have gotten to work the moment he’d left the house. That’d been more than fifty hours ago but holy shit, the amount of food on the tables, all the people who are here today and the letter-shaped decorations dangling overhead plus everything else a party needs to thrive. All of that couldn’t have been easy to arrange on short notice.

Also, as it turned out, couriers didn’t just randomly get time off; they could either take or leave shifts. Only two things prevented couriers from arriving to work: not being in any condition to drive their Stingray, or the courier’s death.

That also means Katie must have known he’d complete the course to time the end of her shift accordingly, and so had everyone else to avoid missing out on attending. He lets his gaze drift over the party. It’s just as much of a family reunion as it is a party.

“You wouldn’t have failed,” Katie points out, rolling her eyes, looking highly entertained by his modesty.

She stoops down to pick up a can of soda, cracking it open with a crooked finger. It’s not hard to guess that she’d probably helped out his parents behind his back. That explains why she’d been rather evasive in the past few days leading up to his run.

“You put too much trust in me.” Matt sits back down on the garden wall and picks up the leftover can of soda that she’d set down earlier.

Bah, screw the pasty he’d crushed. He just dusts his hands free. He’ll let the skags have this one. Sure enough, somebody’s pet skag comes ambling over to sniff the remains. A second later, it's head is bent, gobbling away noisily. Katie and Matt watch it for a moment.

The soft drink can hisses as Matt pops the tab. There’s a single second where he thinks he’ll be safe from its wrath but it promptly gushes white foam that goes all over his front and hands. He squawks in indignation, leaping to his feet again. Everybody else has gone to retrieve more food, so only Katie is there to witness the spectacle. The skag is ignoring them.

Unable to stop a snort, Katie splutters mid-sip and also sends soda sloshing all over herself. The two glance down at themselves, then at one another and burst out laughing for about a minute.

“Good thing we’ve got spare uniforms,” Katie says once they’ve mostly calmed down. That results in giggling. Matt is reminded of the several spare uniforms sitting in his inventory, still encased in their protective plastic wrapping.

“Here’s to becoming Pandora’s Post Services’s newest couriers,” He says, raising the half-empty can to toast the two of them.

“Amen,” Katie agrees with a matching grin. They both knock back the cans, seeing as they’re still too young to be chugging the alcohol that’s putting all the other adults in a good mood. The skag sits down in front of them, it's ugly, tri-jawed face looking hopeful for more scraps.

\--

Katie’s tiny corner of the courier’s office consists of a cubicle with a bunch of hideous neon trays labeled with peeling stickers denoting ‘In’, ‘WC’, ‘EC, ‘NC’ and ‘SC’, plus a bunch more that she can’t be bothered to decipher stacked on top of a grey desk. More stacks of empty trays on either side pen the desk in.

If she drops anything in the gap, she can say ‘goodbye’ to it for good unless she gets lucky and manages to fish it out.

The desk is accompanied by a loud geometric patterned office chair with two wheels that are almost about to come loose. Whenever she sits down on it, it emits a series of shrill sounds until the chair adjusts to her weight. The chipped barcode gun and her courier’s ECHO device dangle from metal hooks drilled into a cubicle wall. Cracks from the hooks spiderweb the plastic walls (once coloured a sky blue) of the cubicle.

The last time she left a tiny potted drakefruit plant out, it was missing by the time she got back so she doesn’t really put up any personal items or leave anything of hers out on her desk.

Well, it’s not the most glamorous of places to get started for the day but it’ll do. Katie sits down on the chair (which groans, as always), just in time for Toby to swing by with an armful of mail to be sorted.

Without hesitating, he dumps the entire lot into her ‘In’ tray, almost upsetting the other trays that clatter in protest as they’re shunted aside. She deadeyes him, then the tray like it’s personally offended her with its presence alone.

Toby flashes her a grin as if he’s done nothing wrong, leaning on the wall of her cubicle (never mind how it starts to lean to the side under the slight weight).

“Really, you’re not even going to let me have five minutes to settle in?” Katie deadpans.

Toby shrugs. “One of our other couriers called in sick so somebody’s got to cover their run, so guess who-”

“It’s me,” She says in the driest tone (squeezing in a note of sarcastic thrill in for good measure) that she can manage without offending her boss.

Toby is easy to get along with, save for his atrocious habit of turning up where least expected and scaring the shit out of others, plus his unwavering optimism in the face of mail threatening to flood his own desk when not enough couriers came in for work.

“Bingo!” Toby cheesily flashes her a wink and double pistols, earning a snort from Katie. “I’d help you out but I’ve got another load coming in that I’ve got to sort out.”  He wanders off with a little wave probably meant to be apologetic but Katie senses that it’s more for show so she won't hate his guts for just being the messenger.

It’s hard to hate Toby when he’d been so accommodating towards Matt and her when they’d first arrived. His persistent nagging has mostly stopped, save for when they’re setting out; he has a habit of turning up to run them through last minute checks to see that they’ve got everything they could possibly ever need.

Food, water, medkit, ECHO device, saddlebags, spare saddlebags, he fusses until they’ve agreed to take just one more canteen along lest they get thirsty- he’s almost as bad as her parents. Only when he’s inspected everything to his satisfaction is he willing to let them go.

Katie glances over at the load he’d dropped off and suppresses a groan. She leans down to find the button to turn on her computer, a piece of technology probably dating back to pre-Atlas occupation.

It takes five minutes to get past the booting screen. It’ll be another ten minutes before she can access anything vital, so she gets up (her chair groaning in relief) to make some coffee in the break room.

On her way there, Matt almost bumps into her. They sidestep one another before swivelling around. Matt is also bearing an armful of letters. She can barely see the top of his head over them, spotting the tip of his nose poking out as he tries to see where she is. Come to think of it, he’s grown another five centimetres in the last three weeks. She doubts he’s noticed.

“Er,” He awkwardly says, caught between trying to move and address her at the same time.

“You alright there?” Katie moves to take half of the load, pitying him. Grunting, she hefts half of the lot into her own arms, hearing a relieved sound for her effort.

“Thanks, you’re a lifesaver,” He breathes. She can now see his dirt-stained face and equally dusty courier’s uniform. They’d arrived at the office together about twenty minutes ago.

“Let me guess, they made you do the morning run around all the postboxes in the neighborhood?” Eyeing him, she tries not to look so smug for guessing right, seeing as he lightly frowns.

“Yep, nailed it. Assholes.” Matt nods, delivering a pointed, sideways look at the people responsible.

Said assholes are busy at their own desks, carelessly tossing mail to be sorted into the trays for some newbie (likely either her or Matt) to deliver to the automated digistruct scanning system downstairs so that it’ll all get organized, then spat into designated saddlebags for couriers to pick up and deliver.

At least they all get stuck with the same job before the most exciting part of the day goes down: getting out there and delivering what’s in those bags, hopefully without dying or getting hurt.

It’s still only just past dawn so Katie helps Matt over to his desk. Fortunately, it’s located right next to hers, thanks to Toby’s firm belief that ‘newbies should stick together, it’s a skag eat skag world out there’.

Given that, the back office is arranged in a pre-determined social circle of sorts. Katie and Matt are grouped with some couriers who have a few years of seniority on them but not enough to garner any serious attention from those who’ve been at the job for decades. The older couriers are on the other side, their cubicles featuring half a metre’s addition of legroom and space to store items.

“You want some coffee?” She offers Matt, peering around the plastic divider separating them.

Matt eagerly nods without looking at her. Soon he'll be an addict like the rest of them. Soon, he’ll hate the coffee. Soon, he’ll also complain that the coffee isn't up to scratch, no matter how many times they've tried to persuade Toby to try another brand that’s not Tediore.

“That’d be fantastic!” He’s already hunkering down to squint at the first letter of his day, a yellowing scrap of a thing with a nearly indecipherable address scrawled across the front.

When sat on, his chair utters a shriller squeak than hers. It’s the only comfort she finds herself looking forward to (inevitably eliciting a tiny giggle from her every time; he lets it slide).

In the break room, she checks out the shifts for that week. Since she and Matt are still new to the job, they’ve got the safer areas closer to the office at the cost of heavier loads.

Toby had explained during the tour that it's so new couriers can memorise the routes leading in and out of town, plus all the shortcuts that aren’t exactly ‘showing up’ on the map he’s given her.

“And hey, if you come across any new routes you think would be of use to the other couriers, it might be worth passing it on, you know?” Toby had also noted with a casual shrug, watching her play around with the map.

Now the actual, holographic map (covering all of Pandora’s coasts) featuring all the shortcuts takes up an entire office wall. She’s spent many an hour studying it, copying the ones that seemed useful onto her ECHO device. Rarely, a courier will stop in front of the map to pick up the pen and scribble down a note that some other courier will find useful.

She smiles, watching one fellow (Barry? Harry?) do so as she passes and enters the break room to wait her turn for the coffee machine.

Once the ailing coffee machine’s brewed and ejected her daily fix of caffeine into a paper cup, she returns to her desk with it, being very careful to set it down where nothing will knock the cup over before going to work. She’ll have to bring in her own mug (not leaving it out for any vultures to swoop in and take it in her absence, of course).

The set-up is easy: pick a piece of mail from the ‘In’ tray and decipher the address and name of the recipient. Input it onto the system, mark it with the barcode the printer under the desk spits out, then toss it into the appropriate tray based on the location the computer gives. So, stuff going to T-Bone Junction or Hollow Point all goes into the ‘East Coast’ tray. The sorting machine downstairs will take care of the rest.

Lather, rinse and repeat until there’s no more mail left.

All the mail doesn’t technically have to go through this tedious process. Katie’s had people come up to her on the road to directly hand stuff to her. All she has to do is jot down the address and see if a signature is needed and add it to her delivery list. The barcodes that’s stuck on at the main office is solely for the sorting machine downstairs.

Since she has two loads to get through, it takes her twice as long. By the time she’s done, the other couriers are filing into the break room for more coffee and to exchange inane banter and talk. Some of the quicker ones are already out the door once they've grabbed the saddlebags to load up onto their Stingrays and are setting off.

Matt’s head leans out of his cubicle. “You coming for break?” There’s a pen sticking out above his ear. She points to it. “Oh, thanks.” He removes it, tossing it into a paper cup designated to hold such assorted office items.

Katie gives a sad shake of her head. “I have to cover somebody’s run today, so later.” His gaze floats over the load still scattered across her desk, an ocean of paper, parcels and someone’s potential wrapped goodies.

“Yikes. I’ll bring you something,” He says, his chair creaking as he rises.

Bless Matt, Katie thinks as he strides off down the hall to battle the masses for more fresh coffee and coax a bunch of sandwiches from the food dispenser.

The sandwiches taste somewhat artificial due to the substandard and aging food digistruct system inside the dispenser but they are edible and free, which is the whole point of why that machine exists. Obvious hints about purchasing a newer food dispenser also fell on Toby's deaf ears.

Still, she could do with something more filling. Sadly, the nearest cafe is about a ten minute walk away and today is not a day for walking on over there.

Right, that’s possibly a lunch box she’ll have to bring into work now. She has rations but they aren’t quite the same as a home-cooked meal. She’s also always fancied trying to make her own lunch box. Maybe she can persuade Matt to actually try cooking (it’s not as much of a terrifying chore as he makes it out to be).

\--

When they’re back from their deliveries and if their shifts end at roughly the same time, Katie and Matt do what they always do: hang out at Katie’s place.

Katie’s place is less crowded for one. It’s closer to the post office so there’s less of a walk involved. They don’t mind walking, letting their Stingrays have a hard-earned rest. It gives them time to chat and stretch their aching legs after spending more than half the day forced to sit.

They both live in a small town which consists of only about a hundred people. It’s not really out in the sticks but it’s not that close to a city either, thanks to a stretch of road that peters off the deserted highway. It serves as the only busy entrance and exit to their town. There’s other roads running in every other direction that everybody knows that the couriers prefer to use.

The only reason why their town is even on the map is because of the Pandoran Postal Service headquarters situated near the centre of town. Otherwise, their town might as well be barely a blip on any map of Pandora’s east coast. There aren’t even any notable landmarks nearby to tip off anybody to their town’s location.

That said, the town is fairly well stocked as a result of the post office’s existence. Everything is in walking distance. Nobody ever goes hungry or neglected. Everybody knows one another on sight. The sheriff does their job. All the couriers live in the town. The bus makes a weekly trip in and out; any strangers that get dropped off or are passing through are sure to be gossiped about in a few hours.

Katie and Matt both grew up watching people move in and leave (friends, family, strangers, travelers looking to settle but eventually grew restless since nothing ever really happens). Leaving’s never crossed their minds, never having felt trapped or limited by their town’s location or personality.

If they do happen to get extremely bored, they can always trek to the town’s bookstore and park themselves on the deflated couch there to flick through the magazines and books.

From the owner of said bookstore (a friend of a family friend who usually let them stay until closing time), Katie was gifted a hardcover edition of ‘Bunkers and Badasses’ for her fifteenth birthday.

It’s been a long time since they’ve pulled it out of her closet so when the most recent dust storm (as they’d both predicted earlier in the day) takes out the ECHOnet reception, Matt has the grand idea of taking a look at it again. Katie tracks it down in a box of books located on her top shelf in the closet.

There aren’t any spiders on Pandora, sparing them the trouble of having to clean it of cobwebs, just dust. Katie blows the layer of dust off the cover, causing them both to cough and fan the air.

The rest of the afternoon flies in a blur as they pore over the pages, soaking up the information and concepts within, filling them with excitement as they both start to learn about the game.

Through the gap in the curtains, the dust storm rages outside, bathing the world in an orange, billowing cloud that will no doubt, leave everything covered in a rusty residue. Matt absently hopes his parents got the laundry in on time seeing as he hadn’t been there to remind them.

The two jump, causing the bed to awaken with a creak of metal springs when Katie’s family hollers up the stairs. “Dinner! Is Matt having dinner with us as well?”

“Yeah, might as well!” Matt hollers down the hallway at them. The dust storm isn’t calming down anytime soon so he guesses he’ll have to stay over for the night.

“Alright, we’ll set a place for you too!” Katie and her family don’t mind Matt staying over. His family knows that if he’s not home by dinner, he’s at Katie’s and vice versa.

“We should find some people and set up a game,” Katie proposes, closing the book. “Are you staying for the night? The guest room is free.”

Matt agrees that that’s great idea with a nod. “Yeah, looks like it and thanks, I promise I won’t snore so loudly this time.” Grinning, Katie tries to kick him but he springs up and off the bed, away from her bare feet.

He could try driving home on his Stingray but any sane Pandoran knows that dust storms could disorientate even the most seasoned traveler and left them not knowing which way is north or south once it dissipated.

Plus, out of the hundred people living in this town, there’s bound to be a few who are interested in Bunkers and Badasses, right? Wrong. Everybody the two ask are too busy, uninterested or haven’t heard of the game.

Not at all discouraged, Katie and Matt resort to scouring online forums for someone who’ll happily accept two newbies who are very much invested in learning how to play.

At this point, they are slowly absorbing the hang of delivering mail at night. Toby goes along with them during those times, mentoring them in the art of navigating through Pandora’s frightening pitch-black darkness in areas with no streetlights.

His cheerfulness never wavers even then, helping them to conquer the fear their family instilled in them during their childhood to stop them playing out in the dark and return indoors, no five more minutes, come inside _now._

Every Pandoran child knows that even while the sun is still in the sky, there are dangers but at night, the dangers go unseen, bound to snatch them up in one claw or swallow them in one gulp, never to be rescued no matter how hard they screamed for help. All Pandorans grew up with a fear of the dark that never quite leaves them as adults.

It’s a little hard sometimes for Katie and Matt to stifle the tiniest, frightened sound that escaped them whenever Toby drifted too far ahead and his Stingray’s tail lights flickered off and stayed that way a second too long (one of the downsides of driving with old Stingrays).

Emerging back into the sight of the town is always an enormous relief that Katie and Matt can’t put into words. Something about how the light protects them, maybe. Secretly, Matt likes how he and the dark go together, how it conceals him. Katie abhors it, always needing a hot chocolate to calm her frazzled nerves after each lesson, courtesy of Toby taking them to the late-night cafe afterwards.

In the daytime, their routes are slowly taking them out into the wilderness, the work beginning to take its toll on them in the form of tanning their skin further from long hours spent under the sun, calluses forming on their palms from the daily hefting of saddlebags and from gripping the handlebars of their Stingrays.

Matt is starting to build all that muscle he’s always wanted from hauling loads back and forth between the office and the postboxes. Katie just keeps growing more built with all the work. She’ll soon have to order new shirts seeing as the sleeves on hers are growing a tad too tight around her upper arms.

Their reputations are only just beginning to form as the people on their routes grow to accept them as a familiar face passing by. Even if they don’t always stop by, they always waved and got a friendly wave back.

The hours for their shifts are adjusting to accommodate their experience. There’s more free time now that they’ve learned most of the ropes. As they abandon newbie duties, Katie and Matt are both eager to find something to occupy their time off with.

Bunkers and Badasses is ideal; each courier always has a specific day off and theirs are always together (another string Toby had pulled with the scheduling of shifts).

“I found someone who might be willing to teach us how to play,” Matt reports to Katie. He rubs at his eyes from having focused on the laptop screen for so long.

“Really?” Katie leans over to see what he’s brought up on his laptop. They’re both chilling out on his bed side by side, legs stretched out, backs pressed against the wall. The fan in his room drones on in the background. People thump around downstairs.

‘SherlockHulmes’ is the poster’s username. They’re interested in starting up a new group, seeing as their last campaign has just finished. Their last group’s broken up and gone their separate ways.

“Newbies and experienced players welcome,” Matt reads out, forwarding a link to Katie. It’s the only post he can find that’s worth looking at.

They’re both guests on the forum but they both post (five minutes apart, no need for an explanation for that little coincidence). Katie and Matt have barely settled down again after grabbing snacks from downstairs before they get a response from ‘SherlockHulmes’. It’s in the form of a chat invitation.

Katie and Matt both connect.

SherlockHulmes: Hello there!

guest2348: Hi!

guest2347: Hello!

SherlockHulmes: I’m Sherlock. I’ll be your prospective DM. I take it that you want to learn how to play?

guest2348: That’s right!

guest2347: I haven’t found anybody where I live who plays, so I thought I’d check out the forums online.

SherlockHulmes: You’ve come to the right person. Er. Place.

SherlockHulmes: First order of business is picking your characters and renaming yourselves! Here’s a simple guideline and class guide I wrote up.

\- //guest2348 has renamed themselves to ‘TrellimarAleath’. // -

\- // guest2347 has renamed themselves to ‘EloraGalanodel’. // -

TrellimarAleath: Done.

EloraGalanodel: Is this okay?

SherlockHulmes: Perfect! I’ve attached some character sheets you can fill out now. If you have any questions about anything, feel free to ask me.

guest4578: Hi, is this group open to newcomers or is there a game in progress?

SherlockHulmes: We are definitely open right now, so feel free to hop in! If you have a character ready to roll, then send me the character sheet and if not, get creating!

\- //guest4578 has renamed themselves to ‘CamBuckland’ // -

CamBuckland: I already have someone prepared, if that’s alright? ;)

SherlockHulmes: I see you’re experienced.

CamBuckland: I have plenty more from where that came from, if you catch my drift.

guest4976: Hello? Anybody here?

SherlockHulmes: Welcome! Join in, we’re still getting started.

\- // guest4976 has renamed themselves to ‘JiǔtóuZhìjīJīng’. // -

JiǔtóuZhìjīJīng: Did I do it right?

Can Buckland: Nice name.

SherlockHulmes: Perfect! We can wait around for a few more people and if nobody else turns up, we’ll just get started.

JiǔtóuZhìjīJīng: Is it okay if I invite someone?

SherlockHulmes: Certainly! The more the merrier.

\- // guest4985 has renamed themselves to ‘LobenTrogdor’. // -

LobenTrogdor: Greetings! Thanks for the invite, Jiǔtóu!

JiǔtóuZhìjīJīng: :)

LobenTrogdor: Are we still waiting on people?

SherlockHulmes: Yep! Feel free to talk amongst yourselves while you get your characters in and I get set up.

LobenTrogdor: So, where’s everyone based?

TrellimarAleath: Pandora.

EloraGalanodel: Pandora!

LobenTrogdor: That’s so far away!

JiǔtóuZhìjīJīng: Hecate.

SherlockHulmes: Hermes here.

LobenTrogdor: I’m at Eden-3!

guest7846: Am I too late to join?

CamBuckland: Only fashionably late, friend. There’s always room for one more.

CamBuckland: Sorry, I had to tell my roommates to shut up. Eden-5 citizen here.

\- // guest7846 has renamed to ‘Falk’. // -

Falk: Great! I’m from Pandora as well.

TrellimarAleath: Lots of folks from Pandora here.

EloraGalanodel: Yeah! It’s nice to see that and lots of other people from other places too. Nice to meet you all.

CamBuckland: Nice to meet you too.

Falk: Hi to everyone!

LobenTrogdor: I look forward to getting to know you all!

TrellimarAleath: Same, same.

JiǔtóuZhìjīJīng: What Loben said.

SherlockHulmes: I think we’re good now. I don’t think anybody else is joining. Anyway, you may call me ‘Sherlock’. I’m your DM and now that I have all your sheets here, let us begin in this other chat so we can keep track of things.

SherlockHulmes: Here is a bunch of commands for use in the other chat. Questions and such should be kept to this one while official business should be conducted in the other.

SherlockHulmes: Does everyone have a working ECHO device?

Falk: My mic is broken :(

Falk: I can still hear people chatting though!

SherlockHulmes: Not a problem. Just respond in this chat and if we’re going too fast, just let us know!

Falk: Thanks!

SherlockHulmes: Here we go, hold onto your hats, people!

\--

Two months later, Toby eyes the two of them sitting in his office. “You’d like to be known as Trell and Elora from hereon out?”

“Yep!” Katie grins at him. Matt says nothing, simply giving an affirmative nod.

“Well, everybody here goes by a nickname of some sort, so that’s a-okay.” Sans him, but he thinks Toby is a perfectly acceptable name and it’s not like he can come up with anything more creative to use.

Toby leans across to the electronic roster where all the names of the couriers are listed to edit their names.

“Thanks,” Katie tells him, her voice warm with gratitude.

Toby just shrugs. “How do you spell Elora?”

“E, l, o, r, a,” Katie spells out.

“And Trell?”

“T, r, e, double l,” Matt says. “I wanted to go with Trellimar, but I think it’s too long.”

“Those sound like fantasy names,” Toby observes but confirms the name changes. “And done! Is that all?”

Katie and Matt watch the roster’s display flicker to reflect the edits. Seeing their new names appear in place of their own, they turn to one another with identical, pleased grins.

It’ll take a while for the change to sink in amongst the others. That said, it’s not the first time someone’s requested to be called something else in their office.

At least they hadn’t picked anything ridiculous, Toby thinks as they leave his office. It’s actually kind of cute, he idly muses as he prepares to shift through the priority packages on his desk awaiting scan clearance.

\--

Katie stares at Matt, who is currently sneezing repeatedly in the kitchen. It is almost time for work and he is still in his pyjamas.

His pyjamas simply consist of plain black boxer shorts and a three year old grey t-shirt with the logo of his favourite show plastered across the chest. She’s never precisely understood what the scalpel and a pocket watch fused together are meant to symbolise. Since she doesn’t watch the show, it’s a mystery to her.

A fluffy white blanket (with mismatching patches sewn in places) stolen from his bed is haphazardly draped around his shoulders. One edge (with white threads fraying off it) is beginning to slip off. The rest of the blanket dangles down to his bare feet where it gathers there as though it’s a cat enjoying a lay down on top of its owner’s feet by a fire.

Matt sniffles and throws her a miserable look that induces the feeling that Katie strictly reserves for ‘sleeping kittens piled atop one another’ and ‘a horde of chubby puppies galloping across a field’. A tiny part of her feels annoyed that Matt has to get sick at a time like this.

“I think I’m sick,” Matt belatedly concludes after there’s a few seconds of suspenseful silence. It’s broken by the sound of his coughing. The resulting rattling hack makes Katie want to thump him on the back to check that his lungs aren’t full of golf balls or something.

“Do you think you could stop being sick right now?” Katie proposes, moving to put the kettle on. Maybe if she stays all the way over on the other side of the kitchen, she’ll have less chance of getting sick too.

While it’s heating up, she tracks down a battered box of tea from inside the pantry and plops an equally squashed tea bag into a flaming red mug with a chipped handle.

His face screws up like he’s just tasted the sourest lemon drop imaginable. After a moment, the expression gives way to misery once more. Katie would have laughed if he hadn’t looked so miserable.

She’s only seen that look on his face three times before (first, when he’d outgrown that shirt he’d had ever since he was a kid, and second, when they’d announced his show had gone on a year-long break).

“Nope.” He sounds awfully cheerful for somebody who's about to miss his first day of work, ever, in the years he’s spent working as a courier. “It’s just a cough, I’m pretty sure I can still drive a Stingray-” He confidently says that right as he sneezes the loudest sneeze yet. It rebounds off the kitchen tiles, making Katie’s eardrums ache in the following seconds.

More of the rattling coughing that shakes his whole body follows. His voice is gradually sounding like it’s coming from a broken speaker, possessing a muffled, fading in and out quality to it.

“And I’m sure skags will fly,” Katie mutters, already dialing up Toby on her ECHO device. Even a five year old kid could tell that Matt is not feeling well.

“Don’t call Toby!” Matt tries to dive at her to knock the ECHO device out of her hands but trips over his blanket. He ends up skidding on it almost across the entire length of the kitchen floor. As he passes the kitchen table, he grabs the edge to stop himself from meeting the floor or a wall face first.

“You’ve just called Pandora’s Postal Service-” Toby’s chipper voice starts in a businesslike manner.

“Toby, Trell’s sick,” Katie promptly cuts in on his cursory spiel before he can launch into the full range of options of how he can help her.

"Elora, what-” There’s a thoughtful if somewhat awkward pause as Toby digests the news, upon hearing that she’s not a customer. She can imagine the look of concentration he’s sporting as he’s mentally reshuffling shifts. “Well, that’s unfortunate!” He finally says in a genuinely concerned tone. “How long for and with what?”

“I think it might be flu,” Katie muses, proceeding to guess, “Couple of weeks, I’d say.” She watches Matt right himself with a shiver he tries to hide but fails. As he’s pulling the blanket tighter around his shoulders, he takes a second to to look rather affronted that she’s just told Toby he’s sick.

Unfortunately, their town noticeably lacks a resident doctor (weirdly enough, they do have a dentist). The nearest one remotely matching the occupation lives in something of a cave and raved about the miracles of rakk wings dipped in alcohol and left to ferment for weeks on end.

The only other doctor of renown that they can trust is based at Fyrestone, which is unfortunately on the other end of the east coast.

“I’m _fine_ ,” Matt insists, looking stubborn despite how cherry red his nose is becoming as he rubs at it, trying his hardest to breathe through all the crap plugging it up.

“You’d just sneeze yourself off the road,” Katie dryly observes.

“Well then, guess who gets to take over his run until he’s well?” Toby sings, sounding like he’s enjoying this immensely.

“It’s me,” Katie grumbles, shooting Matt a look of ‘you owe me big-time’. Matt tries to apologetically shrug, only to end up sneezing again.

“I hate being sick,” He mutters, drawing his blanket up higher around his shoulders like it might somehow help. He has no idea how he’d gotten sick.

It must have something to do with all the rain that’s been sweeping over the coast lately and all the late-night runs he’s been doing for some extra cash (new laptop and ECHOnet show pass, here he comes).

“Yep! I'll get his stuff ready with yours and bless you,” Toby bids before he drops the call. Katie sighs. The kettle whistles loudly to announce it’s done boiling, hissing steam.

She makes two mugs of tea, deciding to make one for herself. There’s no sense in wasting water and with the incoming rain, something warm would be good.

She presses the red mug on Matt, not budging from beside him until he’s drained half of the contents (setting his insides alight with a cozy fire, unplugging his nose and soothing his sore throat). Mug still in hand, Matt’s escorted back his room in a manner akin to that of a watchful mother hen herding a naughty chick.

Climbing into bed, Matt briefs her on how his run goes (fretting about whether or not she’ll be able to do it, seeing as their routes didn’t usually overlap), even going so far as to try to slide out from under the blankets to try to tell her everything he can remember.

“You also have to stop by the Dahl Headland and pick up my gun from the-” He says for the fifth time, only to be met with a scathing look that instantly silences him. He coughs and her look softens, just a bit. Sensing weakness, he launches another attempt.

It’s only when Katie threatens to let his family know he’s sick and let them descend on him then if he doesn’t get back into the bed that instant, does he relent and allow her to leave in peace.

The only upside to missing out on work is that he still has some catching up to do on his favourite show (bless whoever came up with the concept of streaming). He sets down his mug on the ammo box serving as his beside table and turns his laptop on.

Really, he’d like his SMG back, he misses it so much is the last thing he-he’s already snoring away before the episode reaches the five minute mark.

In the kitchen, Katie pours the rest of the tea into a thermos and sticks it in her bag for later, pulling on her coat and goggles. It’s going to be a rough day, she can tell, the door clicking shut behind her as she leaves.

\--

The expanse of never-ending highway leading into T-Bone Junction will never cease to fill her with a sense of wonder. Suspended high above the dunes being stirred up by invisible hands, Katie can see for miles around.

The wind’s cooling her down as best as it can, considering it’s a few hours into midday and the sun is as merciless as ever. The rain down south hasn’t caught up yet, leaving her free to enjoy the scant few hours she has left being dry.

“This is Pandora’s Postal Service requesting entry into T-Bone Junction,” Katie broadcasts when she can see the shield glimmer in the air thanks to the sunlight reflecting off it. T-Bone Junction is one of the few places she and Matt both pass through on their routes.

Contrary to what he thinks, she does know what she’s doing or else she wouldn’t have made it this far as a courier. She still doesn’t get what he’d been so worried up about, unless he’d neglected to mention something or other. Well, he can always call her once he’s woken up.

The shield above T-Bone Junction ripples as it falls away to admit her. She ends up in the middle of town, right on schedule. Sure enough, once people have heard the unmistakable rattling of her Stingray, are forming a loose line that winds around the buildings with more joining by the second.

Katie kicks the stand under her Stingray out and powers down her ride, hoisting a saddlebag into her lap. She’s parked underneath a bright pink beach umbrella kindly set up for her. Sunlight pokes through a hole along one of the plastic edges.

Someone presses a bottle of cold water into her hands. She thanks whoever it is, cracking it open and taking steady gulps to relieve her thirst. It’s wonderful, sparing her the effort of having to get out her own canteen.

This town is always so kind to her and she supposes that it’s only because of the fifty people who reside in it. The town is even smaller than hers and is somehow making up for the size with its personality.

The line moves up steadily as whoever wants to know if there’s something for them tells her their name. She hunts for the right person in her saddlebag. If there’s something, she hands it over and logs it. If not, well, she gives an apologetic shrug.

“Maybe next time?” is the answer she always gives, with a disarming smile. There’s never any hard feelings from anybody who doesn’t walk away with mail clutched in their hands.

Sometimes they’ll just talk to her about everything and anything. As she indulges them, Katie gets the feeling that they just like to chat to an unfamiliar face, given how trusting this place is. She sometimes brings scraps of news from outside, which always appears to please them.

The last person in the line is usually a man dressed in a formal Dahl military uniform and a monocle (fancy that, in this day and age). Whenever he asks for his mail, he mumbles, always having to repeat himself whilst stubbornly looking down at the ground.

She always has to beat down the terrible impulse to tease him. He always fled with his mail so she’s never exactly carried a long conversation with him. It’s never exactly stopped her from asking questions about him once he’s gone.

“Oh, Zylus? He’s a good lad. Keeps this town in one piece,” explained a well-meaning old man who always wants to hear news of his grandchildren down south.

“Is he always this shy?” Katie had asked.

“No.” He’d fixed her with a searching look that she hadn’t thought capable from such a kind face, sounding protective in the next second. “Why, you fancy him? I think he fancies you. Never seen him blush so hard when talking to someone before.”

A lady overhearing the conversation also chipped in with, “He also has the same exact reaction to the other courier, so I hope neither of you go disappointing him!”

Well, she can’t deny that the uniform doesn’t have an effect on her. And so, the next time she meets Zylus, she takes a deep breath when handing over his package. Before he can escape, she loudly asks, “How are you?”

He freezes, looking right at her cheerfully grinning, friendly face (and she can now see that his monocle is hiding a blue cybernetic eye that’s a mismatch for his remaining brown one). It makes her feel instantly bad for putting him on the spot as he flushes harder.

A moment later, he stands up even straighter, his shoulders no longer tense. Good grief, he’s taller than Matt, when Matt isn’t slouching under the weight of a full saddlebag thrown over his shoulder.

Zylus does not look her right in the eye as he politely answers, “Fine, thank you.” Taking advantage of her momentary pause, he promptly flees, leaving her pleasantly surprised that he’d even responded. She hadn’t even thought about what to say if he’d even chosen to say anything.

Does it make her feel warm and fuzzy on the inside that this is happening to her? Well, she’s not out to intentionally turn anybody’s day upside-down.

A bit more digging reveals that she’s actually older than him by a couple of years and that the uniform certainly isn’t for show, considering how often he tangles with neighbouring bandit populations.

Well, if he ever picks up the nerve to properly talk to her (or Matt, she knows Matt wouldn’t mind chatting with him too, if Zylus supposedly reacts the same way to him), he knows how often she passes through the town.

A girl can dream, can’t she? She tries again the next few times she passes through town, succeeding in making basic conversation with him until he’s stopped looking at the ground or disappearing once she hands his stuff over.

Stuff for him usually consists of heavy boxes shipped in from somewhere else on the east coast. Judging from the sounds coming from inside the boxes as she lifts them, she suspects parts and by the looks of his hands (grey in places from oil and grease not quite wiped off properly).

The only delivery for him today is something she’d picked up on her way to T-Bone Junction. It’s a plain brown cardboard box that’d been left by a postbox, warm from the sun.

There’s a return address of a bandit camp on the side (some of the words badly misspelled), with Zylus’ name (spelled correctly, almost painstakingly so) scrawled across the top in black marker. It’s lighter than his usual deliveries, only about as heavy as a toolbox.

Zylus blinks, frowning. Had he not been expecting it?

“Is it something you were expecting?” Katie asks, holding up the box in her hands.

A quick double-check reveals that yes, it’s definitely addressed to him. Nobody else around here has a name that starts with ‘Z’ and if they did, they didn’t live anywhere in or close to T-Bone Junction.

“I didn’t think there’d be anything for me, but I thought I’d check,” is his careful response. He takes the box out of her hands when she holds it out to him, hefting it into his arms with an ease she admires.

Zylus flips out a combat knife and slices through the tape on top, right through his name. The knife is put away before he hesitantly cracks open one of the flaps.

There’s a loud beeping sound that her mind takes a single second to register. Katie freezes, her eyes widening as she moves to dive out of the way but it might be too late, the beeping already frantic and matching her heartbeat- with all his strength (and Katie hadn’t even seen him draw back his arm), Zylus just _flings_ the box upwards.

They both watch the box sail up, higher and higher, waiting for the inevitable moment it starts to fall as the beeping still sounds.

The shield snaps back into place right under it when it starts to fall. The box explodes (a fiery red, yellow and orange billowing sphere spitting grey smoke replacing it) a second later. The sound of the explosion, a muffled ‘boom’ feels unreal, given that the shield had softened it.

Debris, chunks of metal, melted circuitry and bits of cardboard harmlessly rain down onto the town. Most of it slides off the shield. To her, whatever is raining down looks like snowflakes, albeit the wrong kind, considering the circumstances.

After a few seconds, Katie dares to turn her head to give him a sideways glance. She can’t help denying that she’s scared of what she’ll see. Zylus is only just lowering his arm, taking several deep breaths. He straightens up a moment later, his face alarmingly blank.

People around them are staring, pointing or gaping at where the bomb had gone off, whispering amongst themselves.A few dare to shoot Zylus looks of concern that he ignores. Once they see the look on his face, they hastily look away. Some of them stand on tip-toe, trying to see what had happened. Their eyes are on her as well.

“Where did that delivery come from?” Zylus asks, his soft, deep voice carefully void of all emotion. When he looks straight at her, Katie has to do all she can to not flinch at how cold his remaining eye is.

Being asked such a blunt question snaps her out of her shock. “A bandit camp down south,” Katie informs him after hastily checking her log.

Once she’s told him, Zylus takes a moment to digest the information. He is so silent that the air might crack under how strained it’s becoming until, with a faint shudder he eventually appears to pull himself together. It’s clear to her that he’s come to a clear decision by the way his shoulders become determinedly set.

“Thank you for telling me.” His words sound cordial enough and yet, there’s an awful note of steel underlying it. He sweeps past her to digistruct a technical from the Catch-A-Ride Station.

“I’m sorry!” Katie blurts out as the technical appears, the machine falling silent. “I didn’t even think there’d be a bomb in it, I just-” She knows she’s just mindlessly babbling, spinning paper-thin excuses but she can't help, if only she’d taken more care, then none of this would have happened. She foolishly moves after him.

At the sound of her footsteps behind him, Zylus whirls around to regard her sharply. Katie can’t suppress a flinch at the pure hostility in his gaze. It softens and just like that, he’s already back to the image of the shy, humble man she’s come to recognise on sight.

“No, no, it’s not your fault!” He reassures her with warmth in his voice (as if it’d never disappeared to begin with), giving a guilty shake of his head.

“I should have just done a quick scan-” Katie insists, hiding how inwardly stunned she is by the rapid shift in his demeanour.

There’s a function in the courier’s ECHO log that’ll do just that. However, all the couriers rarely saw the need to use it unless they suspect something is especially fishy.

Nobody is also that stupid as to risk pissing off the only postal service by delivering anything risky via them. It looks like no more deliveries to the Salt Flats are imminent (which serves them right for trying to blow her and Zylus up).

“You wouldn’t have had time, you're always so busy-” Zylus counters, flushing.

“No, it’s my responsibility as a courier to guarantee the safety of-” Katie also can’t help flushing as well once she sees that he’s doing so.

“It’s my fault-”

“No, it’s-”

The two stop trying to talk over one another, looking down at the ground with equally mortified expressions. When Katie looks up, she sees Zylus looking up as well so they catch each other’s eye. They quickly drop their gazes back to the ground again.

After ten seconds of silence filled with awkwardness that she can’t stand, Katie risks talking. “I’ll take full responsibility for the incident. If there’s any sort of damages, you can file a complaint to my boss.” She looks at him as she says that, perfectly willing to accept any fault on her part.

Imagining the look on Toby and Matt’s faces (Toby would be more upset about her getting hurt, while Matt would have instantly blamed himself for not being there, still laid up in bed with flu) as they read about the reported incident fills her with even more shame for neglecting her duty. The best she’ll probably walk away with is a warning. At worst, she’ll be fired.

It must have shown on her ashamed face because Zylus stares for a second, before shaking his head. His tone is gentle but firm when he speaks. “No, the fault is entirely mine. I pissed off some bandits a week ago for blowing up their mate, so I was sort of expecting retaliation. Just not in that manner.” He moves to climb into the technical, giving her a kind smile after.

“Wait, I'm sure there’s some way to settle this-” She takes one step, only for Zylus to interrupt her.

“Sorry for dragging you into the mess. You should probably scan any of my packages you find after, just in case. You have my permission.” The technical starts up with a rumble that makes her boots shake from how close she’s standing.

There’d been a note of finality in his voice. It leaves Katie without a doubt that the issue is now settled, regardless of whether or not she wants to continue arguing about it. Zylus steers the technical out of the Catch-A-Ride Station and off down the road, the shield parting to let him out.

Katie guiltily watches him leave, unable to believe that he’s not furious at her for almost having died because of her carelessness. It looks like she’d been right about her judgement of him being a decent person (sans the furious expression; he’d looked used to being that angry, and seemed unsettled by having let it show).

One of the residents approaches her. “Are you alright, Miss Courier?” They take her arm in such a manner that she suspects that they’re worried about her falling over from delayed shock.

“Where is he going?” She points after the technical that’s already a tiny dot on the horizon. Her Stingray couldn’t even achieve that sort of top speed, even on a good day and with a brand-new machine. Zylus must really be in a rush.

“Probably to kill those bandits,” The resident calmly notes, leading her over to a wooden chair outside the mechanic’s.

Katie smothers her alarm with a jerky nod, letting herself be led away. She hasn’t killed anybody yet during her runs but there have been a few close calls with a few of Pandora’s more unstable citizens. There will come a day where she will have to skip the warning shots entirely.

When that day is, she doesn’t know. She finally leaves T-Bone Junction behind once the residents are satisfied that she’s unharmed.

They do press all manner of medical supplies on her though, just when she’d been about to leave. She only takes the bandages since those could come in dead useful when least expected. The rest, she politely declines.

There’s a medical kit in her inventory that remains fully stocked even if she’s only doing an hour’s run checking the post boxes around her town. It’s another one of Toby’s safeguards.

She emerges, teeth chattering, into the Dahl Headland area half an hour later (thanks to a shortcut through the mountains made only possible via the Stingray’s jump boost).

It’s bandit country once she’s past the border, now heading towards the downed frigate resting in the clearing. Her poor neck aches from trying to crane her head all the way back as she draws closer. It makes her feel like a spiderant standing next to a rakk hive.

The coordinates are not wrong. They point her straight to the ship, which blocks out the sun’s rays with its immense size (much to her disappointment; she’d been using the sun to warm up again).

At least the bandits of this particular gang know not to shoot at her or any other courier on sight. It always makes her uneasy to draw this close to a stronghold though. Other bandits usually preferred to send someone out to meet her on the edge of their territory.

This gang is treating her with nothing but deep respect, simply glancing her way before going back to their jobs. The bandits are keeping wide enough of a berth so that nothing gets in her way. A few grab and heft boxes and goods aside so her Stingray doesn't get caught on them.

A few of them enthusiastically wave at her as she passes. Pleasantly surprised, she raises one hand to wave back to them, albeit awkwardly. The gesture appears to please them, judging by the grins two identical bandits standing by two dismantled helicopter-like machines shoot at one another.

She cruises right up to one of the airlocks that one of the bandits (a giant masked being with one arm in a cast, the other arm free to wildly gesture, which they do) directs her towards.

A helmeted bandit is standing there, patiently waiting to greet her. “Delivery?” They calmly guess, shoving off the metal wall. If she’d been standing, they would have towered over her.

Katie can only nods, her fear spurring her heart to beat against her ribs with a vicious rhythm. All the blood in her is thudding in her veins and ears to the point that she’s surprised they can’t hear it as well. It’s okay, she tells herself, this lot are reasonable since Matt's dealt with them before.

Aware that they’re looking at her expectantly (through the tinted lens of their helmet), she digs around in one saddlebag. A few seconds later, her hand is withdrawing a cardboard box barely the size of her whole hand.

“Yeah, for one...D'arsenal?” The writing’s cramped all along one side in pencil, causing her to squint at it. The shadow cast by the ship isn’t helper her.

She’s not familiar enough with these bandits to know if whoever she’s trying to deliver the package to is actually named that. This place is only on Matt’s route.

The bandit snorts (are they laughing at the name?), then slopes off to enter the airlock behind them. Once they’re gone, other bandits approach her to politely ask if they have any mail, which she does. Seeing that she’ll be here a while, she kicks the stand out under her Stingray to anchor it and her to the ground.

There’s more bandits popping out of the airlocks to peer at her in mild curiosity, more than she’d have thought would have occupied a single stronghold. Her fear ratchets up a notch; appearing to sense this, the two identical bandits who’d seemed delighted at her wave from earlier shout for order.

“Oi, don't crowd the lady!”

“Back off, give her some room to breathe! Yeah, make a line, you idiots are capable of it, I swear to fucking-”

They help pass the mail around, hollering for their friends, other bandits jostling one another as they try not to crowd her. Clearly they’re just as pleased as regular folk to get packages, each of them saying rushed, grateful thanks as they take off with their loot.

She relaxes, no longer tense around them.

The helmeted bandit returns twenty minutes later with someone in tow. It’s another bandit with a pronounced limp and a grumpy scowl that scatters any remaining bandits near her. The two bandits who’d helped maintain order have mysteriously vanished at the sight of the limping one.

Well, at least all the mail to be handed out is gone by now, so nobody’s missing theirs.

“For the record, it’s _Arsenal,_ not whatever bullshit is written on there,” Arsenal lectures once he’s limped over, holding a bare hand out for the package.

Grimy, oil stained gloves are hanging off his belt. A ghost of a black smear smudges one freckled cheek. They’re shorter than the other bandit (still taller than her) but clearly holds just as much authority as the helmeted one.

“Sure thing, _D’arsenal_ ,” His companion seriously notes. Arsenal regards them with a glare that they shrug off. Katie has a feeling they’re grinning under their helmet. If she wasn’t in any imminent danger of offending Arsenal, she’d giggle.

The second Katie hands over the box, Arsenal withdraws a tiny brand new pill bottle from it, deftly wrestling the cap off. He tips out one white pill onto his calloused, black-lined palm.

Seeing that it's intact, he drops the scowl to look pleased instead. The pill is returned to the bottle before he tucks it into his jacket. The box is almost squashed flat under his hands.

Arsenal pauses, appearing to reconsider the move. He instead leans up to drop it right on top of his companion's head so that it’s sitting right on top of their helmet. Katie stops breathing because the helmeted bandit goes incredibly still.

“It’s your new hat,” Arsenal dryly remarks as they turn their head to regard him with an air of disbelief.

One of the other bandit’s hands slowly reaches up to pluck the box off their head, regarding it blankly before crushing it in one move while looking straight at him. The box is discarded with a casual flick of the wrist, landing in the dust several metres away.

While Arsenal hasn't moved from his spot, his hand is hanging by his digistruct module, as is the other bandit’s. The grin he’s now wearing is more challenging rather than friendly.

A tiny, barely audible cough reminds them of who’s still present. It breaks whatever mounting tension that’d sprung up. Sheepishness flickers over Arsenal’s face while the helmeted bandit crosses their arms over their chest, shifting where they stand.

Katie silently holds out her ECHO device to get a signature. Arsenal signs off with a signature that’s as ambiguous as his supposed ‘alias’.

“The pills are intact, so I don’t have to curse at you this time.” Arsenal gives her a satisfied smirk.

“Finally, now you can stop bitching about your leg,” His companion mutters, appearing not to have forgotten the stunt he’d just pulled.

“Shut up Arado, or I’ll really give you something to bitch about that involves a bullet straight to your face,” Arsenal retorts without turning. He tilts his head, proceeding to stare intensely at Katie, frowning slightly. “Wait, you're not our usual courier. Whatever happened to the other one?”

“Trell got sick, so I’m doing his runs for him today,” Katie politely informs him, buckling her saddlebag back onto her Stingray and clipping her ECHO device back onto her belt. She’d rather not be here once these two remember why they were about to fight.

“It’d be great if you told him to stop wrecking my pills by sitting on them.” Behind Arsenal, the helmeted bandit’s frame starts to shakes with laughter. Arsenal doesn’t see it.

“I’ll let him know.” Katie is now resisting the urge to snicker at the thought of how many times Arsenal must have chewed out Matt for wrecking the pills, accidentally or not. She kicks out the stand under her Stingray, tucking it up with her boot to avoid letting it catch on anything later on.

Wasn’t there something Matt had said about picking something up from this area? Almost reading her mind, Arsenal moves towards her, his face creasing in pain from the suddenness.

“Hold up. Give this to Trell, will you?” Arsenal casually digistructs and hands her a Maliwan SMG that she barely manages to not drop, stowing safely it in her inventory before she can accidentally fire it. “I cleaned it up for him, else it’d be a real shame to let a great gun go to waste. You have a safe trip.” He steps back.

“Thanks,” She says, swinging her Stingray around to head back the way she came.

No wonder why Matt had wanted to tell her about doing his route; he must have wanted his gun back but was worried she’d forget to pick it up for him.

Arsenal and Arado watch her to make sure she arrives at the entrance to the clearing without any mishaps. Bandits shout ‘thanks for the mail!’ as she passes them. It puts a smile on her face. However, in the future, she’s going to avoid traveling to this area and leave it to Matt, seeing as he speaks highly of these bandits.

\--

It starts when the sorting system breaks down. One moment, trays filled to the brim with letters had been sucked into the system without a hitch. Months of missed daily scheduled maintenance are taking their toll on the giant machine, tiny moments of stalling adding up to one giant one that at last, announces that the machine has finally had enough of being neglected.

There’s a sound underneath everyone’s feet like a conveyor belt being sheared in half with a chainsaw.

Startled, Katie leaps half a metre into the air, painfully banging both of her knees into the underside of her desk and causing Matt to also jump. Cursing, he falls off his chair, clutching his shin. His chair drifts across the aisle.

Toby explodes out of his office at the sound, sprinting to the basement where the sorting machine is located.

“Nobody panic!” are the words slung over his shoulder that Katie barely manages to catch because of the pain she’s in. Other couriers are beginning to get up from their desks to follow Toby.

He flings open the basement door, causing the hallway to start filling with noxious black smoke that leaves everyone coughing, eyes watering and arms flapping. The smell causes something to turn inside Katie’s stomach, her gut clenching.

Katie and Matt stumble across the aisle to throw open windows on their side of the office, letting the smoke drain out, the other couriers copying them within a few seconds.

Donning an Oz Kit that someone tosses him, Toby dives into the basement. He does not emerge for a few minutes. When he finally does, he’s covered in soot, peeling off the Oz kit that debubbles.

“The good news is that we didn’t lose any mail! The bad news is that we’re out a sorting system,” He announces. It’s met with a collective series of pained groans from everyone standing around him.

“Does this mean we’ll have to _manually_ sort out the mail?” One of the couriers shudders as they ask the question.

Toby gives a grave nod as he tosses back the Oz kit he’d borrowed, wiping his face on his sleeve. “I’m going to go and call up the repair people and let everyone know that their mail will be late. Save what you can from downstairs.” He trudges back into his office, the door swinging shut after him. They can see his outline sit down at his desk, his head in his hands.

Katie and Matt glance at each other, gulping nervously at the task set before them. They troop downstairs after the others, trying just as hard not to drag their feet.

By now, the black smoke has mostly stopped, reduced to a single pencil-thin column that feels along the ceiling for a way out. The room smells like it’s been through a wildfire.

Matt’s eyes trace the smoke all the way to the main machine. He tries not to cough from inhaling too much of the air. He can taste the smoke on his tongue.

“It’s not surprising it’s finally kicked the bucket,” grumbles one of the older couriers as they heft several trays of unsorted mail into their arms. “Been telling Toby for years to get that looked at.”

The other couriers murmur assent, also grabbing whatever trays they can. Katie and Matt grab several and make their way back to their workstations.

While Toby had a bad habit of springing nasty surprises on them, for him to neglect something so important to their operations makes their stomachs turn. He’s not the kind of person to simply ‘forget’ to call in routine maintenance.

Then again, they haven’t been here as long compared to the other couriers and besides, the system going down during peak work hours has put a giant damper on everyone's spirits. The others are probably just looking to conveniently pin the blame on someone and that someone is Toby.

Katie barely remembers how to sort the mail out the manual way. Grab trays, label trays with Pandoran locations, look up mail’s address on system and put mail in right tray. The system usually did it for them but seeing as the system is out? Katie downs a cup of coffee, rolls up her sleeves, grabs one of the last working pens and starts to work.

The office is filled with nothing but the collective sound of people typing, pens scratching away notes on pads and the odd shuffling of paper. Someone loudly curses once they find out they’re out of trays. Katie bites back her own curses and gets up to relieve the ache in her knees, shoulders and back.

She’s been sitting for over an hour, bent over her desk. There are five trays left, with more below that need to be brought up.

Overtime is probably likely for everyone. They’ve barely made a dent, judging by the downcast looks on the faces of those who trek downstairs to grab another load.

Deliveries are going to be chaotic while they all work through the current load (and more loads are expecting to come in over the coming hours as the collection couriers start to make their rounds to the postboxes).

“Who’s got stuff for the Dust and the surrounding areas?” Someone shouts from the other side of the office. A whole bunch of hands rise. Katie sticks up her own hand, having a few letters to contribute. The unfortunate courier goes around to all the hands and methodically collects the mail. “Last call for the Dust and surrounds!” Seeing no more hands rise, they depart.

As each prospective courier leaves, they shout out their destination, following in the previous one’s footsteps to collect mail that’s part of their route. The people staying behind have to pick up the pace. Any mail that’s not going out will have to delivered later with another courier who’s outbound to the same area.

Well, as the Pandoran’s Postal Service’s motto goes: we may not get your mail to you on time, but it’ll get there in the end!

Katie is willing to bet that their complaints are going to skyrocket after this week. Poor Toby. He’ll be the one to listen to all those and figure out if there’s anything to take away from them. Matt absently passes her about five spare trays he’d managed to snag as he sits back down.

“You’ll need these,” He mumbles, already going back to work the moment she’s taken the trays off him.

“Thanks,” She says, touched by his thoughtfulness.

One of the other couriers (Harry, she faintly recalls) shoots Matt a dirty look for stealing the remaining spare trays before he could reach them. Katie just gives them the stink-eye. The other courier returns to their station, looking sour.

Just in case, Katie decides to lock the spare trays underneath her desk in the filing cabinet there. Half an hour later, she ends up pulling said trays out to use them; her desk is overflowing. There’s barely any room for her to work, let alone fit anything else onto the desk.

An hour after that and she’s out of trays. More couriers have departed with their lighter than usual loads. A quick glance around the office reveals that it’s just her, Matt and about ten others left.

She has about fifty or so things left to sort through with no idea how to keep them together. Her eyes come to rest on a box of rubber bands chilling by her computer.

That’s it, rubber bands! She could use rubber bands to keep all the mail together!

The mail’s going to be creased all over anyway from being stuffed into the saddlebags (an inevitable fact of life everybody getting mail has come to accept when working with the postal service). Pleased with herself, she leans slightly out of her cubicle.

“Hey, Trell,” She whispers, wanting to share this new bit of knowledge with him. There’s usually no reason to use the rubber bands. Until now, that is.

“What?” Matt lifts his head, his pen tucked behind his ear for safe-keeping. He puts down the parcel he’d been trying to analyse to raise both eyebrows at her.

“Use these to keep all your stuff together if you’re out of trays,” She reveals, holding up the box of rubber bands to offer them to him.

Matt blinks, then casts a wary glance around them. Nobody is watching them having hit upon this stroke of genius. He quickly takes a handful of rubber bands, dropping them into an empty box and out of sight.

“Thanks,” He whispers back, turning back to his parcel. Katie doesn’t doubt that there’ll soon be a shortage. Just in case, she submits an urgent request for six more boxes of rubber bands to be delivered to her desk by tomorrow.

Hopefully Nina or Teutron won’t mind doing that. By then, the two will have heard all about the mishap with the sorting machine by now and are probably only just getting the word out about the delay to everyone visiting the front to drop off and pick up mail.

As she’d predicted, everyone clocks in overtime (that’s fortunately paid for by the corporations as part of their initiative to try to stay in all the civilian’s good graces). It’s evening by the time she and Matt drag themselves over to her place.

Neither of them have seen Toby leave his office once in the time that they’ve spent working. The light was still on in there when they’d walked past to head on home.

They don’t feel like making dinner and order pizza (having a right chuckle about the fact that it’s nice to have somebody else doing the deliveries for a change).

They eat as they sign into the Bunkers and Badasses chat.

\- // TrellimarAleath is no longer idle. // -

\- // EloraGalanodel is no longer idle. // -

CamBuckland: And that's how I became the champion of the spelling bee back in school, thanks to the word ‘interloper’.

Falk: Spelling is very important.

SherlockHulmes: I fail to see how that’s relevant to our current campaign.

CamBuckland: It’s not, I just wanted to distract you from torturing us any further with all these minions we have to fight.

SherlockHulmes: Just for that, I'm putting in a werebear with your name on it, CamBuckland.

CamBuckland: :(

EloraGalanodel: Good evening from Pandora!

CamBuckland: Good morning from Eden-6!

SherlockHulmes: Good afternoon you two. You’re on later than expected.

EloraGalanodel: There were some problems at work and had to do overtime :(

Falk: That sucks! What happened?

TrellimarAleath: Has everyone heard about the delay with the Pandoran Postal Service yet? Pandorans only, that is.

Falk: Oh yeah, there was some sort of notice going out earlier about delays for the next two weeks.

TrellimarAleath: Well, the sorting machine exploded.

EloraGalanodel: It jammed.

CamBuckland: Wait, exploded or jammed?

Falk: Really?

SherlockHulmes: So should we hold off on sending stuff?

TrellimarAleath: Yeah, hold up on sending stuff. That’d make our life a lot easier.

CamBuckland: ‘Our’ life?

TrellimarAleath: Um. My life, I mean. I mistyped.

CamBuckland: It sounds like you and Elora know each other in person.

TrellimarAleath: Well

EloraGalanodel: We do! Sort of.

CamBuckland: Falk, you owe me ten dollars.

Falk: Goddammit.

TrellimarAleath: Wait, what.

EloraGalanodel: What’s going on?

SherlockHulmes: These two had a bet running on that you know each other outside of the chat. I tried to stop them, I really did.

TrellimarAleath: We’re friends in real life.

EloraGalanodel: It’s okay, Sherlock. If it helps, we work together at the same workplace too.

CamBuckland: What do you two do?

EloraGalanodel: We’re both couriers!

Falk: Where are you two based on Pandora?

TrellimarAleath: East Coast.

Falk: Damn, I’m based nowhere near there.

TrellimarAleath: Did you want to meet up?

Falk: Yeah! But I doubt that’ll happen since you know, traveling anywhere on Pandora is hard.

TrellimarAleath: I can relate to that feeling so, so much.

EloraGalanodel: What Trell said.

Falk: Well, I can always hope we can meet up someday!

\- // LobenTrogdor is no longer idle. // -

LobenTrogdor: I see chat is finally busy! Greetings, all.

SherlockHulmes: Hi.

CamBuckland: Hello!

EloraGalanodel: Hi!

TrellimarAleath: Hello.

Falk: Sup!

LobenTrogdor: Nothing much, just finishing up a business assignment, so I’ll be super quiet. Carry on, I’ll respond eventually!

CamBuckland: So who wants to hear my story about how I won the spelling bee for those who missed it earlier?

SherlockHulmes: I will fucking mute you, Cam.

CamBuckland: It’s a great story!

EloraGalanodel: I’d love to hear it!

SherlockHulmes: Elora, no.

EloraGalanodel: It sounds like a great story!

CamBuckland: It all started back when I was ten years old.

\- // SherlockHulmes has muted CamBuckland. // -

EloraGalanodel: :(

Falk: :(

Loben Trogdor: :(

Falk: It really was a good story.

\--

Matt stops next to the row of apartments, leaving his Stingray to the mercy of the town to meander up the stairs. The stairs give a foreboding creak under his boots with every step. Matt feels cautious about taking them but unless he wants to sneak up via the fire escape, there's not much else he can do except for hope that the rotting wood won’t give out under him.

The stairs hold. He finds the apartment number on the letter and matches it to one of the doors, knocking on the wood twice. If there’s nobody home, he could always just push it through the flap in the door but he finds that it’s always best to give it in person.

During the tour of the office, Toby had emphasised the importance of seeing that satisfaction first-hand. Matt suspects he’s just making sure the couriers leave a good impression behind.

“Be there in a second!” shouts a muffled, sleepy voice from what sounds like several metres away. Footsteps rapidly pace towards the door. The locks clunk and clank before the door creaks open to reveal one of the very last people Matt ever expected to meet again.

“ _Ravs_?” Matt’s mouth almost falls open. He recovers, standing up a little bit straighter, swallowing whatever surprise he feels at Ravs’ clothing (or lack thereof, regarding his upper body).

“Trellimar?” Ravs blinks at him, flashing a brilliant grin at him after that instantly makes Matt forget about everything but the letter in his hands.

Last he heard, Ravs was running around with a couple of Vault Hunters after blowing up his own bandit slaughterhouse. That was ages ago, mind, and courier gossip could be outdated in places owing to the lack of good gossip.

“You got mail,” Matt somehow says without embarrassing himself in the process, holding out the letter with as much dignity as he can.

The letter is a fancy shade of royal purple. Ravs’ name and his address have been delicately inked on in black letters. It’s in cursive font, too. Matt can hardly do print and neatly, at that. It’s one of the nicest letters Matt’s ever had the honor of holding and delivering (and that’s not just because of who it’s addressed to, thank you very much).

Ravs takes it with enormous care, smothering a yawn with his other hand. Matt can spy that he’s wearing dark pink boxers printed with love hearts because one edge is sticking out underneath his kilt (the buckles of which appear to have been done up hastily). His boots are loose around the ankles, giving the impression that he’d just pulled them on without bothering to do up the laces.

Well, at least he hadn’t answered the door _naked._ Matt would have died on the spot if he had, barring the fact that he’s never had that happen in his career. Yet. It doesn’t deny the eventual possibility. There’s even a special cake to be brought out in the office for when that happens.

If it weren’t for the hilariously high possibility of making an idiot out of himself, Matt would be having a conversation with him by now. Katie would have struck up small talk by this point; he wishes she was here to give him some pointers.

He watches Ravs flip the envelope over, appearing to seek out the return address. The memory Matt has of him is fuzzy thanks to time. It saddens him to think that he’d forget so easily.

At a glance, Ravs looks mostly the same, save for the acquisition of several new scars (tiny but noticeable up close against the rest of his skin) on his face, chest and arms.

Most of his black hair is disheveled, looking like he’s just tried to comb it back with his fingers but he’d given up midway. Several small yellowing, purple bruises stand out on his broad shoulders, near his collarbones. One sits right on top of his Adam’s apple.

What’s the story behind all those?

Matt’s eyes accidentally drift down to Ravs’ waist. He catches sight of pale, obvious scar tissue that looks like something had tried to puncture him along his right hip.  Three painful-looking circular marks sit where the bone starts to curve down-he looks back up to find Ravs watching him, an eyebrow raised.

“Is this from you?” Ravs gives Matt a searching look that might have been the tiniest bit entertained and implicating.

“No! No, no, no! I couldn’t ever-no, it’s not mine!” Dying a little on the inside at having been caught blatantly staring, Matt quickly shakes his head to the point of giving himself a brief spell of dizziness that stops when he spies someone in the hallway behind Ravs.

He belatedly kicks himself after realising that Ravs is only teasing him, glancing uncertainly at the other person joining them at the doorway.

They're shirtless as well, but at least they’re wearing pants. Barefoot, they join Ravs in the doorway to peer at the letter with boredom, their arms crossed over their chest. Like Ravs, their short black hair is disheveled, the beginnings of grey making itself known.

Similar bruises stand out here and there on their shoulders and chest as well. Matt sees that they’re scarred in places as well; the spot above their left eyebrow is particularly telling.

Matt also tries his hardest not to stare at them as well. It’s days like this that he can truly say that he fucking loves his job, thanks to worthwhile moments like these.

He knows that later, Katie is going to wrangle every single detail out of him because he can’t hide anything from her, let alone running into Ravs (and if only he could pluck up the nerve to ask for a picture just to serve as proof but alas, there’s only just his memory to go on).

“Somebody sent me a love letter,” Ravs tells them, a smug grin plastered on his face. “It’s not my first one, so I know the look of one when I see one.”

It’s not hard to see that Ravs’ expression has just brightened upon seeing the other person. The tiniest speck of jealously forms in Matt’s gut. Immediately, he destroys it with every ounce of his willpower, recognising it for what it is.

The person standing next to Ravs just eyes the letter with evident dislike. Matt might as well be invisible to them (good, more opportunity to stare without being caught). “Can I see?” They ask in a neutral tone, unfolding both arms to hold an expectant hand out.

“Certainly.” Seeing no harm in letting them have a look, Ravs hands over the letter with just as much care as he’d used to take it from Matt. It secretly pleases Matt that he’s clearly trying not to smudge any ink in the process.

They take the letter, fingers deftly moving to tear it in half, letting both halves flutter to the ground. They dust their hands. Shock flits over Ravs’ face, gone a second later to be replaced by a tranquil fury. Matt’s mouth falls open at such harsh treatment of mail.

“I did you a favor,” They tell Ravs, turning to calmly stride back the way they came. Before they leave though, they glance at Matt like they’ve only just noticed him standing there. “Skedaddle, and close your mouth before something flies into it,” is their curt remark. It feels like he’s being subtly told off for gawking and looked down upon, which irks him.

The second they’re gone, Ravs scoops up both halves from the welcome mat. Both rest on his palm, two purple scraps of paper shaped like torn wings. His irritation vanishing, Matt’s glad that the letter inside is still intact so it’s still hopefully readable.

“Thank you for bringing the letter all the way up,” Ravs says to Matt, giving him a smile that doesn’t quite hide his rage. He stiffly hands Matt a postcard to deliver to Nilesy at Oasis. “Have safe travels!” The effort is appreciated though.

The door briskly snaps shut after Matt manages to work up the nerve to say, “Thanks.” To the door, Matt also quietly mumbles, “You too.”

Matt can hear Ravs breaking into a sprint down the hallway after the other person. “Daltos, that wasn’t very nice!”

“Just tape it back together, I didn’t even rip it up that badly!” is their muffled shout. It’s followed up with a cruel laugh. “I’m not apologising, seriously, a love letter, how sappy-” There’s a sudden crash that sounds like Ravs might have tackled them to the floor or knocked something over in his bid for payback.

Sounds of a tussle start to echo under the gap in the door. Well, that definitely explains the bruises. Still, the bruises had seemed oddly placed, come to think of it.

Going back down the stairs, Matt rubs his face to rid it of the pink affliction he now has now that he’s no longer standing in front of Ravs. He still can’t help grinning at the encounter as he returns to his Stingray. It even helps him forget that the stairs sound like they’re about to collapse under him.

It’s enough to make up for the fact that he’s got about three more hours of driving to do before he can return home. He can’t wait to see the look on Katie’s face when he tells her all about it.

\--

Katie had expected to see the six boxes of rubber bands on her desk first thing in the morning. What she gets instead is a crumpled up post-it note with the words ‘THX FOR THE RBs, WILL PAY U BACK 4 THEM :)’ in black marker, where the boxes should be. The note is fresh, judging by the foul residual smell of marker still hanging around.

Incensed, she snatches the note up and would have ripped it in half, if it hadn’t been for Matt plucking the note out of her hand to examine it.

“Looks like we have an office supply thief on our hands,” Matt grimly concludes with a frown on his face.

Katie glares at him for stating the obvious. “Those were _my_ rubber bands that they _took_ ,” She almost snarls.

Matt looks taken aback at the ferocity contained in those words. He’d only ever seen her this angry when somebody had stolen her treasured drakefruit plant (it’d been a birthday gift from him and strangely, she hadn’t wanted a replacement).

“We’ll just order more-”

“I was going to share them with you,” She flatly reveals. That has the effect of causing Matt to open his mouth, then snapping it shut as he too, joins in her indignant fury of having their supply of rubber bands filched from under their noses.

One yawning Toby passes them at that exact moment, fatigue caressing his eyes so that they’re half-lidded and muted, not bright and energetic.

“Morning,” He mumbles, knocking back a mouthful of warm coffee from the chipped mug in his hand.

Katie is already marching over to roughly shove the note into his other hand and impatiently crossing her arms over her chest, awaiting his conclusion.

Toby glances down at it in surprise, smoothly flattening it out so he can peer at it. “Somebody took your rubber bands?” He mutters after squinting at it for thirty seconds. It’s not under his breath so Katie hears him, immediately jumping to the wrong conclusion.

“They did it without asking if they could do so or telling me that they’d replace them!” It takes all of Katie’s willpower to not snap at him.

“Okay, we’ll sort this out,” Toby sighs, clearly seeing that she’s upset. He hands her back the note, scratching the back of his head, clearly thinking. He looks up at her, his sleepiness gone. “Tell you what, I got some in my office, let me grab you them.”

“That’s very kind of you, boss,” Katie gratefully says a moment later, blinking. She’d expected him to brush it off like nothing, actually.

Toby smiles a tired smile at her before he walks off into his office. He returns a few seconds later with ten giant boxes of industrial-grade rubber bands, balancing them in his arms.

“Here you go, these should be better than the ones you ordered.” She and Matt take the offered boxes off him.

“We’ll make good use of these,” Matt informs Toby.

Toby shrugs as though it’s no big deal. “You’d better get sorting, I just saw another load from the postboxes being dropped off back there and we’re still trying to coordinate all the late deliveries from yesterday.” He leaves them with a cursory nod, the door to his office clicking shut.

Katie and Matt return to their desks, Katie dropping her boxes into her filing cabinet and locking it. Matt tucks them into his inventory, given the lack of space in there at the moment.

She’s no longer upset about the theft of her rubber bands but she is however, still contemplating interrogating each of the other couriers to find out the culprit.

It’s not the first time something of hers has gone missing (and she’d been very attached to that drakefruit plant, seeing as it’d come from the tiny but lush garden Matt’s family tends to).

“Stop brooding. I can hear you brooding,” Matt’s voice chastises her, breaking into her train of thought and derailing it.

“I am not brooding!” She indignantly retorts. “I’m trying to think of a way to find out who the culprit was!” There’s also the fact that she’ll likely never see those rubber bands ever again.

Taking fingerprints sounds rather juvenile but she wishes that there was some other way to find out who’s responsible without going through hours and hours of security footage (which would also require getting Toby’s permission).

“I’ll pay for lunch if it’ll cheer you up?” Matt offers without sticking his head around to her side of the divider between their cubicles. “Your favourite’s on special today.”

“Deal,” Katie instantly agrees. It cheers her up a little, but not quite enough to return her mood to the less grumpy one she’d had prior to finding out that this had happened to her (and Matt, to an extent).

They come back from lunch, only for Katie to catch sight of Nina about to open the door leading to the front of the post office. Katie strides over to her, reaching her just in time before she slips through. Matt hesitates before coming over as well, probably suspecting what she’s about to do.

“Nina,” Katie greets with a small wave and nod of her head, a friendly smile finding itself on her face.

“Katie! What can I do for you?” Nina stops to grin at her. “Did you get those rubber bands?”

“No, somebody _stole_ them from me before I came in. I wanted to ask you about that, actually,” Katie explains, her old mood making itself known in how her smile falls from her face.

Nina frowns. “That’s not very nice. I definitely did drop them off at your desk, though. Oh, hi Matt.” From behind Katie, Matt waves at her, not daring to interrupt and remaining silent.

“Did you see anyone by my desk while you were doing that?” Katie inquires.

“Hold on, I remember seeing Harry lurking about your-” Nina muses, her brow furrowed in thought.

“Nina! Need you out here!” Teutron bellows through the gap in the door. “These customers aren’t going to serve themselves!”

Nina heaves a long-suffering sigh. “I’m sorry, I got to go. I hope you figure out who took your rubber bands!” She departs with an apologetic look that she can’t do anything more to help them. The door shuts on Katie and Matt.

“Katie, you can’t just go up to Harry and ask if he’s been stealing rubber bands-” Matt grabs her arm when she takes a step, but Katie is already tugging her hand out of his grip, turning in the direction of Harry’s desk.

“He was lurking by my desk earlier, didn’t you hear what Nina _said_?” That and the look Harry had shot her yesterday for Matt stealing the last of the trays add up to a likely scenario in which would compel Harry to steal shit from her.

“There has to be some other logical explanation for this!” Matt insists, latching on to her sleeve instead. He is almost wrenched off his feet by her next tug. He desperately fires off the last round of ammunition before Katie can take a sledgehammer to their working relationships with the others. “Look, we’ll complain to Toby!”

“Do you think Toby will do something about it if I go to him and accuse Harry of stealing stuff from me?” Katie drops her voice to a whisper as a couple of other couriers pass by on on their way back from the lunch break as well.

“Katie, if anything else goes missing, we’ll go to Toby then.” There’s a desperate, pleading note in Matt’s voice. Katie looks him over, automatically feeling bad that she’s being so stubborn about letting him talk her out of doing anything rash.

“Fine,” She relents, but not without a sour look to accompany it.

Following him, she returns to brooding. Matt constantly peering at her soon forces her to pretend she’s dropped the issue by telling him she’s thinking about work (easy enough to do considering the nightmarish amount of mail they have left to deal with).

Once Matt’s sat back down at his desk, his hand feels out the box of industrial strength rubber bands he’d left out before going to grab lunch. Paper meets his fingertips. He freezes for a second before letting his head lift to see what it is, cold dread flooding his gut.

A post-it with ‘thanks for the rubber bands too :)’ (the handwriting an uncanny match for the other post-it) is pasted on the spot where he’d left them. Matt stands up, knocking his chair over to the alarm of Katie and several others around him.

“Matt?” Katie says his name but he doesn’t hear her, already marching over to Harry. His boots stomp with every step, causing a few pen holders to dance as he passes desks.

A taciturn Harry is seated at his desk, fingers drumming against the edge as he contemplates a bunch of parcels. He only lifts his head a minute after he feels Matt’s furious presence looming over him. He coolly raises a dark eyebrow. “Yes?”

“This looks like _your_ handwriting.” Matt barely manages to refrain from growling in any shape, way or form as he slams the post-it note onto Harry’s desk.

It upsets a plastic container full of (probably dead) pens, sending them clattering over a bunch of rubber-banded bundles of letters. He lifts his hand away so Harry can gingerly peel the post-it away to peer at it.

“That’s not my handwriting,” Harry calmly notes, handing the note back. Matt snatches the bit of paper back. It crumples under the force of his grip.

Katie appears behind Matt. Upon seeing her, Harry’s expression darkens, as with hers. “Matt, we should just go to-” She tries to say, stopping herself from regarding Harry with all of her hate.

“Look at the letters on his desk, they’re all rubber-banded!” Matt gestures to said letters, his hand slicing a sharp arc in the air to point at Harry’s desk. “Nobody else has rubber banded lots!”

“And so they are.” Katie purses her lips, her eyes narrowing as the pieces click in her mind about being right about who stole from the two of them.

“Are you accusing me of stealing your office supplies?” Harry begins in a mild tone, sitting up to regard them with a look of contempt. The other couriers are now looking up from their desks to spot the commotion, a few stopping work entirely to watch. Others just shake their heads and go straight back to work, seeing the situation as beneath them.

Toby walks past with two repairmen. “Right this way gentlemen, sorry for the mess, this _is_ a post office after all…”

“Toby! Can you come over here for a sec?” Katie calls out to him. Toby briefly glances her way then directs the repairmen in the direction of the basement before striding over.

“What appears to be the problem?” He looks over each of them in turn, none the wiser.

“Harry stole the rubber bands,” Katie quickly says when Harry opens his mouth. Harry shoots her a dirty look for snitching, his lower lip curling.

“Harry, my good man, we can’t have that,” Toby jovially starts with a slightly shake of his head. “We take theft very seriously around here-”

“You don’t have any proof!” Harry snaps at him, rising to draw level with Toby. Toby raises both eyebrows, his cheer transforming into seriousness.

The abrupt shift in expression causes Harry to perhaps realize that snapping at his boss wasn’t the best move, not when his boss has spent the last day or so trying to resolve the situation that’d developed, hadn’t left the building until three hours after the office had closed, arrived earlier than usual today to arrange for the repair of the sorting machine downstairs and has basically been running on five hours of sleep, instant meals and caffeine the entire time.

All in all, Toby has been trying to remain optimistic because it’s his job and really, he cares for all of his workers (that’s why he looks out for Katie and Matt in particular because not very many initiates make it to the end of their run, chickening out before the midway mark) but he is tired of the bullshit they pull sometimes.

It’s especially the case with the senior couriers because them pushing around the younger ones is _not_ on. The cycle must be broken or history can (and will) repeat itself.

Toby leans forward with a cold smile.  “Harry, please return Elora’s rubber bands,” He says in a dangerously soft voice that promises ‘dire consequences’ if Harry argues.

Harry slowly shakes his head, looking put on the spot. “I gave them away. There’s none left.” There’s a mulish note in the confession, the last of his resistance fading under The force of Toby’s gaze. He slumps onto his chair, admitting defeat.

“Well, looks like you’ll have to order some more to make it up to Trell and Elora,” continues Toby in the same tone. He drops the soft tone for his normal voice, his smile back on his face. He turns to regard everything, clapping his hands together. “Well, let’s have no more of that here! I don’t have time to settle more of these disputes, so please try to sort yourselves out!”

He gives the three of them a pointed look before strolling off to the basement to see how the repairmen are getting on. The air slowly defrosts.

The moment he’s gone, Harry glares at Katie, who just glares back. He says nothing, though, turning around to order the rubber bands. He submits the order with a sharp jab of his finger against the keyboard, causing it to slam against the desk. A few couriers jump from the sound.

“Happy now? I even ordered you two some new _pens_ ," He mutters, not bothering to hide the loathing in his tone. Katie and Matt leave for their desks, feeling remarkably satisfied with the situation’s resolution.

The next day, they walk into the office, expecting to see the boxes. This time, Harry is standing at Katie’s desk, looking both livid and lost. He shoots them a furious glance that becomes sheepish as they draw close.

“Before you fucking say anything, I didn’t take them this time,” He begins.

“What-” It’s then that the two spot it. There is a post-it sitting on Katie’s desk in black marker. It’s a copy of the note from yesterday propped up by an empty box.

“Oh, for the love of-” Matt slams his saddlebag onto his desk, causing the items on his desk to rattle and jump. He rounds on Harry, looking just as pissed off.

“It wasn’t me!” Harry holds up both hands.

“How do we know it wasn’t you?” Matt growls.

“I even came in early to make sure that nobody else would take them! Ask Nina and Teutron, they saw me!” Harry nods at the closed door leading to where said two are working.

“I don’t think we need to,” Katie slowly says. Matt raises both eyebrows to stare at her. “We believe you.”

“The first time was just a lark, but it really wasn’t me this time!” Looking relieved that she’s not going to punch him or anything, Harry points in the direction of his cluttered desk. “You can even search my desk and cabinet if it’ll make you happy!”

Katie sits down and rubs her forehead with a hand. They’ve resorted to paper clips to keeping all the mail together but even those are beginning to be in short supply. The stationary cupboard is beginning to look bare when it’d normally have gone untouched.

“Let’s just go and check everyone’s desks. It could have been an honest mistake,” Katie proposes (even though Nina and Teutron know perfectly well where everyone’s cubicles are located and wouldn’t make such a simple mistake). It's either that or go and shake down (rather, throttle) everyone who’d arrived early.

“I’ll help,” Harry automatically says. Matt shoots him a suspicious look but Harry ignores it, focusing on Katie.

“We can’t bother Toby again with this,” Katie adds, shooting a glance at Toby’s door. She gets up from her chair.

The three of them split up to search the rest of the office. The other couriers start to trickle in for the beginning of the day. At the very last desk, Matt comes upon the thief trying to stuff the boxes into the filing cabinet underneath their desk.

“I found who stole them!” He hollers at the top of his voice. Harry and Katie rush over to pen in the thief, the three of them glowering at them. The thief starts to sweat and tries to stop stuffing the boxes in, letting them fall to the floor.

“You tried to frame me, you son of a-” Katie barely stops Harry from lunging forward to snatch the box up by throwing an arm out and catching him across the chest. He glares at the thief, fists raised.

The other courier straightens up with a defiant look in their eyes. “There’s only one way to settle this-”

“Just give back the boxes and we’ll forget this happened,” Katie cuts in, still glowering.

“You have the last boxes of rubber bands to be found in this entire town,” the other courier points out, their lips curling back into a sneer. “Which by the way, you’re not _sharing_ with the rest of us who need them just as badly as you two do."

"I was going to try to make a run to the next town for them, but since people in this office aren’t as _trustworthy_ as I thought they were, I canceled the plan,” Katie says. Harry gives her a surprised look that she pretends to miss.

Matt nods. “She was going to, during her next free time.”

The other courier looks guilty but the look vanishes from their face a few seconds later. “I’m still not giving back the boxes.”

“We can’t bother Toby again, he told us to sort this out on our own,” Matt whispers to Katie and Harry. The other courier likely knows and thus, is counting on it, judging by the smug smirk on their face.

“I’ll duel you for them,” Katie abruptly says. “There’s only one way to settle this, right?” The other courier gravely nods.

“Duel! Duel! Duel!” chorus the other couriers who’d been watching. Those who were uninterested suddenly lift their heads, abandoning all notion of work to watch as well.

Desks and chairs are shoved out of the way to get enough room. In the center of the resulting square, Katie’s hand hangs loose by her hip, as with the other courier’s hand. They stand back to back in the middle of the giant circle that’d formed, penned in by the other couriers.

Matt (who gives her an encouraging thumbs up) and Harry fall back, the latter with a look of uncertainty on his face. The air starts to fill with tension, flooding them all with anticipation.

The two couriers take three steps forward. The room is almost quiet, filled with only the loud ticking of the clock on the wall. Nobody dares to cough, sneeze or talk, their eyes glued on the scene. The tension is so thick that it feels like the air itself is trying to suffocate her with its heaviness.

Katie forces herself to calmly breathe in, then out, flexing the fingers of the hand she’ll use to draw. Does she regret that it’d had to come to this? No, but she’s so fucking sick of people stealing from one another in this office. If this will make sure that nothing she ever leaves out will go missing again, then _fine_.

She doesn’t have to enjoy doing this, though. On the other hand, if it gets the message across, then the end justifies the means.

“Draw!” shouts the most senior courier in the room, a tiny, stern looking woman with greying hair tied up in a bun and who constantly smelled of bacon.

In one second, Katie and the other courier round on each other. Her fingers have formed a gun shape, snapping up to fire one shot that goes directly into the other courier’s heart before they’ve even drawn.

They look down at the spot where they’d been hit, looking stunned before falling onto their knees, pretending to be dead. A second later, they’ve crumpled to the floor.

“Elora wins!” Cheers erupt from those watching as the others swarm closer to congratulate her. Katie is riding the high, unable to believe she’d just won, up until the ‘dead’ courier’s friend attempts to shoot her.

Harry dives in front of her, taking the shot. He grunts as he falls to the floor, gasping and curling up from the imaginary wound he’d just taken.

“Harry!” Matt cries out. Katie lets out a small sound of horror escape her for his sacrifice.

“Go, take cover!” are his last, pained words before he slumps and pretends to be dead, going as still as possible.

Matt drags Katie behind a bunch of desks as the other couriers start to mime shooting one another, desks being flipped and chairs sent rolling across the aisles as everyone takes cover.

He manages to snatch up the missing boxes of rubber bands, stuffing them into his inventory. He shoots a courier reaching for them in the hand. They reel back, screaming at the fake wound he’d dealt them. A shot to the head from Katie takes them out.

“We need to get out of the room!” Matt desperately looks around for a way out, ducking down again before he can be shot. People are looting desks for office supplies, upending drawers, turning trays inside out; it’s _bedlam_ in the post office and they’re caught in the middle of it.

“The break room! We can barricade ourselves in there!” Katie is already on her hands and knees, trench crawling underneath a desk. He jams a chair at the entrance to their little ‘tunnel’ to stop anyone from following them.

Sprawled on the floor, Harry turns his head to flash them an unseen grin before getting up. Now that there’s war going on, he can skip out on work. He gets up, making his way through to where the front of the post office is. He closes the door behind him once he’s slipped in.

“Hey, Nina, Teutron?” The front area is empty of customers, save for the two working at the counter.

“What?” Teutron lifts his blond head of hair to survey him with a grumpy look.

“Don’t go back there, it's madness, so I’m clocking off early,” Harry dutifully informs him. He also sounds far too cheerful about being able to do so.

“What do you mean it’s-” Teutron glances at the window besides him. Through the tinted glass, people are punching and shooting each other. Teutron closes his mouth. “I see.”

“Is Toby okay with you clocking off?” Nina puts down her stapler to regard him with a questioning look.

“You want to go in there and tell him?” Harry gestures to the scene playing out behind the tinted window.

“No, thank you, Teutron and I are just fine and dandy here,” Nina wryly concludes after having watched the scene for about five seconds. “Actually, I’ll let Toby know we’re closing up early. There’s not a lot of people coming in here anyway, what with the delay in deliveries.”

“Isn’t Toby away looking at sorting machines?” Teutron muses a few seconds after they've locked up the front of the post office and flipped the ‘OPEN’ sign to ‘CLOSED’. Nina pauses to regard him steadily for failing to mention that earlier.

“Oh yeah.” Not very convincingly, Harry lets his palm meet his forehead.

“We’ll just say we ‘forgot’.” Teutron shrugs. “They’ll stop fighting eventually in there.” The two walk off with Harry to see if they can get a meal somewhere close by, leaving an ECHO message for Toby about the current state of the office.

Back inside, Katie and Matt continue to crawl after one another under the desks, kept safe by the passageway under the desks and the junk piled around them forming makeshift barricades. That and nobody is really paying too much attention to them, far too busy ransacking desks and bodies for office supplies.

Risking being shot, Matt grabs his saddlebag on the way there, hefting it over his shoulder as he ducks back down.  There’s stuff in there he’d rather not get stolen, like his next run (if he ever gets out of his mess alive, that is), lunch, rations, more rubber bands and other office supplies he’d requested from his parents.

The two make it to the break room in one piece. There’s a couple of couriers in there who have had the same idea. Katie and Matt aim their guns at them while guns are pointed at them in turn. The other two couriers glance at one another.

“Truce?” One of them offers with a desperate gleam in their eyes. “We’re just hiding, we’re not interested in robbing you for stuff!”

“Sure,” Katie easily agrees, lowering her hands. They pile chairs in front of the break room door, settling down to wait until the madness has passed. They can still hear people shouting and yelling down the hallway, furniture being smashed and kicked over.

Matt pulls out his lunchbox, prying the lid off to hand it to Katie. “I was going to save this for my run, but here.” The other two couriers have the same idea, pulling out theirs to heat it up in the microwave.

Two hours later, the power goes out and that’s how they know it’s going to be a long, long wait until they can leave the building (if at all).

\--

Toby comes back a day later on a Stingray. The thrill of finally being able to confirm the delivery of the new sorting machine is still causing an excellent high that he’s yet to come down from. He’s not even bothered that he’d had to make a road trip taking two hours.

It’s been months since he last set out on a Stingray so he finds that it’s a rather refreshing change from being cooped up in an office all day.

His Stingray comes to rest out back besides the Catch-A-Ride machine. He disembarks, his Stingray despawning as he jogs up to the back door, key in hand. Humming quietly to himself, he pushes the unlocked door open, letting it swing shut- only to step into a darkened corridor. The door swings shut, automatically sealing him in.

Toby blinks and fumbles for the flashlight on his ECHO device, snapping it on to let it swing up to illuminate the length of the hallway. Huh, the lights should be on.

Is it the weekend? Not quite yet, so Nina and Teutron aren’t out front but that still doesn’t excuse the rest of the couriers from not turning up for their shifts.

It still doesn’t explain why the place is so dark, seeing as the first person into the office has to turn on all the lights. The same goes for the last person leaving, except for switching them off. It’s usually him so he doesn’t mind. Something still feels wrong.

The post office isn’t that lucky as to have many windows for natural light to shine in and besides, the solar panels up on the roof are perfectly functional so there’s really no reason to turn off the power unless- Toby lets out a groan at the idea that the sorting machine might have knocked out the power as well.

He tucks his ECHO device onto his belt with the light still turned on and takes one step forward, only to trip over an upturned chair.

It rattles loudly when he kicks it as he stumbles. Luckily, he rights himself against the wall, frowning because who would leave a chair in the middle of a dark corridor? That’s a blatant health and safety hazard right there. He resets the chair, leaving it well out of the middle of the corridor, now irritated.

It’s so _dark_. The chair is the first item he’d tripped over but it’s not the last. Toby is forced to sidestep and hop over upside-down desks, filing cabinets spilling papers, more chairs sprawled on their side, his boots crunching against glass, papers and whatever else is on the floor.

Had the office been _robbed_? Toby shuts down the idea. They have security cameras to watch over the place but if the power’s off, there’s no way to tell what had gone down until it’s restored. The power switch is in the basement, where the sorting machine is.

The quiet lends an unsettling, brittle air to the room. He can hear his own breathing, stutters that aren’t quite a full breath owing to how fast his pulse his racing.

By now, his eyes have adjusted to the darkness, enough for him to pick out shapes in the room. More furniture on its side, plus a vaguely shaped humanoid outline- Toby rounds his light on the outline and receives a light straight to the face for his trouble.

“Freeze!” A woman’s voice orders.

With his ECHO device swinging wildly from his hip, Toby obeys, putting both of his hands up into the air by his head.

“Elora?” Toby dares to ask, his eyes almost squeezed shut to stop the light from blinding him.

He can see that she’s holding some sort of spear fashioned out of a broom handle with a flashlight duct taped onto the end, which is pointing straight at him. Is that a _kitchen knife_ also taped to it?

Well, it’s just a metre or so away from him, enough for Toby to know that she wouldn’t miss if she chose to lob it, javelin-style. Or stab him.

“Whose side are you on?” Other figures start to drift to her side, bearing crude, makeshift weapons of their own. They all look like they’ve just emerged from a brawl. Wary faces with bruises, cuts and dried blood peer at him, all of them drawn.

“Nobody’s!” Toby hastens to respond once the spear drifts closer to him. “I just want to go and turn on the power and then we can figure out _what the hell is going on_.”

“Well, if you’re on nobody’s side…” Katie lowers the spear she’s holding to turn to someone by her. Toby lets his eyes open once the light is no longer on him.

Katie’s hair is wild, sticking up in places and tied back with a bandana. There are stripes painted along her cheeks. At a glance, her courier’s uniform is no longer neatly pressed in places but badly wrinkled and stained with sweat. Her sleeves have been ripped off around her muscled shoulders, adding an element of ‘definitely not screwing around here’.

Beside her, Matt is looking not much cleaner, one of his arms done up in a sling cut from one of the floral printed curtains. He is holding a very large machete (that Toby will not ask questions about, especially where he got it from because requisitions does not stock knives that big) glistening with an unknown substance that looks remarkably like blood.

“You think we can trust him?” Katie asks. She’s lowered her voice but Toby’s long since mastered the art of eavesdropping so he can pop up in places where least expected.

“I think he’s safe,” Matt murmurs back, shooting a wary glance at Toby. “He didn’t come in with anyone, according to the scouts watching him.”

“Hey-” Toby starts, indignant that they’d be talking about him while he’s standing right there. The two turn to him.

“We’ll escort you back to our base,” Matt curtly informs him, sheathing the machete in his leather belt.

“But what about the power-” Toby tries again.

“We’ll tell you what’s going on and then help you turn the power back on. We don’t have much time to mess around out in the open like this.” Katie gestures to him to follow.

People press against Toby, determined to carry out Katie’s orders (and Toby has an inkling that once he retires, he can easily guess who is going to run the place for him).

He has no choice but to obey, letting himself be led down another corridor and into what appears to be a heavily fortified break room, lines of stacked tables and chairs serving as crude barricades. Katie leads him down the center. People standing guard relax as they see her approach, letting them by. Once he’s inside, he turns off his flashlight, as do the others.

“Water?” Matt offers. He limps over to the sink and fills up a plastic cup, holding it carefully so that no water escapes.

Toby gingerly takes it. The water cooler in the corner has long since been emptied, he notes and there is a smell approximating human fear in the air. Everyone he sees is on edge, wary and jumpy.

Someone brings over a chair for him. He takes it, sipping from the cup. Katie settles in the other chair that someone has also set out for her. Matt remains standing.

Katie takes a deep breath and starts to explain in a quiet voice, “The situation is this: the other couriers have banded together to take the kitchen and are holding out there.”

Toby nods. “Okay.” He keeps the incredulous note out of his voice.

“We’ve been trying to sort out the salvaged loads but seeing as they’ve taken hold of the last of the office supplies, we can no longer remain in this stalemate-”

Okay, Toby has heard enough and cuts in, “Wait, this war started because the office ran out of _rubber bands_?”

“Well, people started fighting over them and we had to do something once the fighting started to spread,” Matt adds in a matter-of-fact tone.

“I leave the office for _one_ day and this happens.” Toby barely manages to stop himself from sliding off his seat because even though he’s heard the explanation straight from them, he still can’t believe how the office managed to come apart in the span of roughly ninety hours.

“Which is why we’re attacking at first light tomorrow,” Katie declares.

“There’s no need to attack anyone!” Toby sits up straight. “I’ll go and turn on the power and I’ll make a priority order with a hundred boxes of rubber bands once I get into my office, so _please_ stop fighting.”

“You’ll have to announce it to the other side,” Katie grimly says after a moment of thoughtful silence. “We’ll take you to the power room.”

“Great.” Toby lets out a relieved sigh. He tosses his plastic cup into the bin and stands up. Katie and Matt fall into step behind him as he cautiously makes his way out of the room, feeling along the corridor.

The power room is untouched. Toby makes it down the stairs without falling, climbing over the conveyor belts instead of going around them. The breaker switch is flipped (he’ll have to find out who turned off the power and give them a strongly worded warning). Light floods the room.

People upstairs cheer as word starts to spread of his return. Toby goes back upstairs, rubbing his eyes. Couriers are hugging, crying, talking, shouting to one another. Weapons are discarded, dropped and dismantled. Those who had been on opposite sides embrace. Katie raises a hand to wipe off the camo paint across her face and undo the bandanna; Matt does the same, though the sling remains in place.

Toby finds as box in the main room and stands on it, raising his voice. “I’m going to order more rubber bands!” This is met by more cheering. “All disputes are now to be settled by _talking_ and not finger gun fights!” The last part is met with disappointed groans.

Standing at the very front of the crowd and in plain sight of everyone, Matt lifts his fingers and pretends to shoot Toby in the chest. Toby looks down, then at Matt with an expression of mild surprise. He proceeds to fall off the box, collapsing onto his side in a ‘faint’.

Matt blows the invisible smoke from his finger gun. “Does this mean I’m the boss now?” Matt inquires with an innocent expression.

“Long live the King!” Katie starts to cheer as Toby picks himself up off the floor to intervene before another duel can occur, this time with his position as the boss being up for the taking.

\--

Katie barely manages to regain control of her Stingray to pull up at the back door of the office. She is drenched from head to toe, the storm blowing rain and her hair straight into the goggles pulled over her eyes. The rain lashes at her. One of the saddlebags refuses to unclip, so she’s forced to wrestle with the clip to try to work it free.

“Come on!” She growls, her wet fingers unable to get enough purchase on the metal to yank it free.

Between the wind, the lack of visibility thanks to the heavy rain and the lack of a dedicated parking area for Stingrays, it’s no small surprise that another courier (in a rush to also get out of the rain) careens into her.

Matt and Toby look up at the sound of Katie screaming, rushing outside to see her on the ground, clutching a hand to her bloody leg that is bent at an odd angle. A white, bone-shaped shard is protruding from said leg.

The other courier has since dismounted from their Stingray and is crouching besides her, stammering apologies, face pale.

Matt drags them away from her and punches them as hard as he can across the face. Toby is more occupied with dialing Nina and Teutron to ‘come out to the back _now_ and call up the doctor located out at Fyrestone or wherever they’ve fucking moved to! Also, somebody get Matt off the other guy!’.

And thus, that is how Katie is now resting in her and Matt’s apartment, yawning. It’s an hour before dawn and since she’s so used to waking up at this hour, she’d woken up but given the state of her leg, she can’t exactly do anything at the office.

Hooray for paid leave, courtesy of Toby. He’d insisted she stay at home, rather than dragging herself in to try to help. With all the rain, he’s concluded that she’ll break her other leg on the way in if she tries.

Her leg is dressed in a cast (signed by everyone she knows, save for the asshole who’d broken her leg in the first place; Matt had broken their nose before Teutron and Harry had hauled him away), propped up by a pillow. She’s in her pyjamas, warm and snug.

Outside, the rain still continues to beat down on everything and everyone. Overall, she’s in a good mood despite having to miss out on work. It’s just as well that they’re not getting awards for perfect attendance.

Matt gently knocks on her bedroom door. “Elora?” He sticks his head around the door.

“You can come in!” She shouts.

He opens her bedroom door, backing into the room with a tray. He sets the tray with enormous care onto her lap. There’s toast, scrambled and poached eggs plus strips of skag meat on a large plate. A glass of juice is placed beside it. A fork and knife are thoughtfully tucked in a napkin.

“Breakfast in bed!” Matt informs her, clearly proud of his effort to not let Katie starve in the morning.

“You shouldn’t have,” She warmly says, taking a moment to breathe in the smell of breakfast, appreciating the kind gesture.

Well look at that, he’s improved leaps and bounds in the kitchen. She’s actually surprised he hadn’t actually burned anything this time. Those sessions of cooking under her watch have definitely done something.

“I feel bad that you have to miss out on work in this weather,” Matt dryly says, gesturing to the window. Raindrops chase one another down the foggy glass. “You’re also stuck in here all by yourself until your leg heals up.”

“My mom’s coming around today, so I won’t always be alone.”

“What will you do until then?”

“I dunno. Check out the chat, do some reading, try to get some exercise in, or whatever happens to strike my fancy.” Katie shrugs.

Matt’s eyes widen as an idea hits him, a bolt of lightning out of the blue. Katie knows that look and makes to stop him but it’s too late. “You know what, you can watch Surgeon Why!” He exclaims.

Katie groans. “I don't think I’ll have time to go through all ten seasons-”

“You can just watch the first season! And if you don’t like it, I swear I won’t bother you about it, ever again,” Matt says as he performs the gesture for ‘cross my heart and hope to die’.

He is not going to shut up about it until she gives in or makes up a plausible excuse but since she’s stuck here, he’ll hound her every day until she agrees to watch at least one episode.

“Fine, send me the files,” Katie relents, leaning back on her pillows. If only she could go back in time and pretend to be sleeping. He knows her too well to pick up on when she’s faking it, though.

“It’s great! Look, I’ll lend you my laptop so you can watch more if you want!” Matt doggedly insists.

“What’s the show about again?” Despite hearing Matt ramble on about it over a million times, Katie has learned to feign interest whenever he starts.

“It’s about a kickass woman who also happens to be a surgeon who can time-travel and this hapless but hot-looking nurse who finds themself in the wrong place at the wrong time, pun not intended, so they end up traveling with her and healing people…” Matt’s enthusiastic voice floats out of her room as he runs down the hall to grab his laptop. She can still hear him happily rambling on about it, his voice growing louder even as he returns with it in hand.

“You’re going to be late for work,” Katie smoothly interrupts as she takes the laptop from him.

She also tosses her goggles to him, which he takes. His broke when a branch flew into them yesterday, almost concussing him if the hadn’t been for his shield. The asshole who’d broken her leg had blown straight through her own shield from how fast they’d been going.

“Shit! Okay, please watch the first one and I’ll see you later!” Matt throws himself out of the room. Five minutes later from her window, Katie watches him digistruct his Stingray, climbing onto it and vanishing into the rain.

Well, she’ll give one episode a try. She hesitantly loads up the first one, balancing the breakfast tray on her lap and his laptop on her bed.

When her mother arrives, Katie is already on the tenth episode of the second season, her eyes glued to the screen.

\--

“You want me to run a delivery route and drop off these? I can do that.” Will Strife eyes the bulging saddlebag Toby is holding out to him. Well, this is what he’d signed up for. Extra cash is always appreciated, even if he has to get his hands dirtier than usual.

He takes the bag, grunting from how heavier it actually is than it looks. He manages to shove it into his inventory, secretly glad he’d spent his last job’s earnings on some new Storage Deck Units to increase his inventory size. Imagining having to heft this thing all the way out back makes his back ache with a phantom pain.

Toby draws back, smiling at him. “You have no idea how glad I am to find outside help that can be trusted, Mister Strife.”

“What can I say, my reputation precedes me,” Will says with a hint of pride.

He looks around the office they’re standing in. More than half of the desks are empty and what couriers are present have donned layers of warm clothing and medical masks. Every now and then, there’s sniffling, sneezing and coughing that Will can hear even from where he’s standing.

He makes a mental note to avoid shaking hands or breathing in the air around them as much as possible. It’s too bad he can’t pull out his Oz kit and don it since that would be rather rude.

Toby turns to address a courier without a mask only just dropping their bag off at their desk with a wet ‘thump’. A puddle has formed under their feet. One of their neighbors absently shifts their wastepaper basket out of the patch of spreading water.

“Trell! Come here and show Mister Strife Elora’s route, I forget where she goes after T-Bone Junction.”

“Can do!” The courier called ‘Trell’ walks on over to the map taking up one whole wall in front of Toby and Will. They pick up the holographic pen and sketch out a rough route along Pandora’s east coast.

Will is familiar enough with the locations so he’s confident he won’t be getting lost (and in this weather, that would be especially bode ill). Still, he copies the map to his ECHO device, just in case.

“Thanks,” He tells the two of them. “When do you want these delivered by?” Trell nods in farewell at him before strolling off.

Will shakes off an odd feeling he’ll be seeing him again. He’s probably seen Trell before; there’s not that many couriers to begin with and one courier isn’t just assigned one route.

“Oh, don’t worry about the time limit! Everyone knows we’ll be late anyway, given the rain.” Grinning, Toby jabs a thumb up and over their shoulder at the rain streaked window. “If anything, you can always say you had to take a long detour because of all the flooding.”

“Right.” Will is careful not to look chagrined at the blatant lack of professionalism being flaunted. “I should be back in a couple of days.”

Toby escorts him to the back of the building, seeming awfully cheerful about sending him out in this weather. “You already got a Stingray? If not, I can lend one to-”

“That I do,” Will says. That earns him slightly impressed eyebrow raise from Toby.

“I’m surprised. You’re the first person I’ve met who possesses a Stingray aside from us couriers,” Toby confesses, opening the door and holding it open for him. He makes sure to stand out of the way of the rain drifting in.

“I got mine from Elpis.” Will points up at the sky where the moon would have been, if it weren’t for the clouds blocking the view of the sky. “I’m off. Let’s hope I don’t get lost!”

He shoots Toby a smile before pulling the hood of his raincoat up, donning goggles and checking that his shield is in place.

Toby laughs and makes a ‘shoo’ gesture with his hand. Will darts out into the rain, spawning his Stingray and hopping onto it. The red taillights wink as he steers onto the road, the rain wiping clear all traces of his presence.

If Will Strife of Strife Solutions is as good as the people who’ve recommended claim, Toby has absolutely nothing to worry about. Besides, Will Strife appears to have his head screwed on right, compared to the other freelancers who turned up looking to make a quick buck and very quickly found out how difficult the job could be.

\--

Even with his shield’s setting for ‘weather protection’ cranked up to the maximum level possible, the rain is still pretty much a slap to the face.

Through his shield, Will can feel raindrops throwing themselves against his goggles and clothes. While it’s nice to not feel the water, he’d rather skip feeling the cold trying to seep into his skin altogether.

While it’s been a few months since he first started doing odd jobs on this planet, the sudden changes in the weather is still something he’s getting used to. The weather reports he relies on didn’t even predict this downpour. He’d come prepared, though, breaking out his wet weather gear for the first time.

The rain has driven everybody else to seek shelter, so it’s just him out on the road. He has the lights of his Stingray turned up to the max, always keeping short of hitting maximum speed. While the Stingray doesn’t have a chance of sliding off the road and it’s practically waterproof, it’s difficult for Will to see several metres ahead of him.

It’s like driving in the dark but replace the darkness with water hitting him hard enough for him to already miss the sun.

He almost misses the turn leading into a run-down hotel. Will swings his Stingray around, using his Stingray’s jump to cheat the wire fencing and end up in the empty parking lot.

Disembarking, he checks the list of deliveries Toby had sent him. Once he’s under the shade, Will pushes the goggles up and pulls down the hood of his coat to fish in the saddlebag for the delivery. He decides to despawn his Stingray, not wanting to risk leaving it out in the open.

A check at the reception reveals that the delivery is headed straight to room four, just on the balcony above him. Will jogs up to stairs and knocks on the door (the ‘four’ is starting to come loose with every knock, so he stops before it clangs onto the floor).

“Alright, coming, there’s no need to break down the door!” Someone's voice impatiently shouts through the thin, peeling and painted wood.

A second later, the door swings opens to reveal a person dressed in the hotel’s white bathrobe and fluffy pink slippers, their short brown hair done up in neon green curlers. Their black beady eyes squint at him in the dim light.

Will blinks at the bizarre sight before deciding he’s not here to judge anyone for how they spend their spare time primping.

“Delivery for one Trottimus?” Will guesses. He withdraws a package neatly wrapped up in plastic and duct tape, heeding the ‘FRAGILE’ and ‘THIS WAY UP’ stickers plastered on the thankfully dry cardboard.

Behind the robed figure, a black-furred dog (that might as well be called a wolf, Will’s never seen a dog that big before) is savaging a red tie with dogged determination, it's shaggy head bent low to the floor. The wolf bounds away with the tie in its mouth as a suited, masked figure clutching a rolled-up newspaper tries in vain to swat it with the roll.

“Give me back my tie, you furry piece of shit!” The suited figure screams as the wolf deftly ducks in under their open legs, toppling them.

They go down with a loud crash, only to get up a second later and continue chasing after the wolf. Someone on the other side bangs on the walls to get them to quiet down.

“Package for Trottimus, you say?” The figure in the bathrobe and curlers barely spares a second glance at the scene behind them, holding out their hands for the package. “That’s me.”

Will hands it over. “I got one more here, for djh3max?” The name awkwardly leaves his mouth.

Hoping they won’t notice how badly he’d mangled the pronunciation, Will pulls out the next package, a lumpy, soft, and misshapen object wrapped in a mail bag with the name messily scrawled across it in looping, cursive script.

Trottimus turns his head to bellow, “Ross! Package for you!” Noticing the wolf pause with the now-ruined tie dangling from their mouth, Trottimus adds in a chagrined tone, “And stop ruining alsmiffy’s tie!”

The wolf spits out the tie that the suited figure (who Will assumes is called ‘alsmiffy’) scoops up, holding it between one gloved thumb and forefinger. Alsmiffy lets out a disgusted sound at the amount of slobber clinging to the scraps of fabric, shaking their head. The decimated tie is tossed into the bin.

Much to Will’s surprise, the wolf trots on over to the door, its fluffy tail wagging the entire time. There’s a horrible series of sounds (bones popping, muscles twisting and being set back into place that makes Will’s body ache all over from the imagined stress) and before his very eyes, the wolf morphs into a naked man with an impressive beard the same color as the wolf’s fur.

“Please put on some clothes,” Trottimus pointedly reminds Ross. Alsmiffy tosses a white towel at Ross that Ross wraps around his waist.

Will keeps his eyes on Ross’s face the entire time, trying his best to not let his gaze drift down any lower because it’s rude to stare and Will is a master of his features and refuses to let himself go red when interacting with customers.

“Can’t, my suit’s still drying,” Ross absently remarks, looking like he’s not minding the breeze or being naked in front of complete strangers one bit. He has a very hairy chest, Will can’t help but notice. The powerful smell of wet fur follows Ross.

“Here’s your package,” Will says, secretly proud that his voice doesn’t crack or go high-pitched once.

Ross takes the bag and tears it open with his (extraordinarily oversized and sharp) teeth, spitting out the bit of torn plastic and withdrawing the item inside. The unbuttoned shirt falls open when he holds it up with both hands to the light.

It’s the most garish item Will's ever seen in his entire life. It’s the color of a sky that’s now currently dumping rain on the entirety of the east coast right now. There are dollar bills sewn on and judging by the uneven amount of stitching around the edges, the person doing the sewing seemed as if they hadn’t really cared if the resulting effect is a hideous Frankenstein of fabric and money.

Ross however, lets out an inhuman noise of pure delight, wasting no time in pulling it on over his bare shoulders. It hangs loosely off him, a size too large for his midriff and shoulders.

“He remembered!” He announces to his fellow roommates, making reference to something Will doesn't know about.

“Oh, that magnificent bastard.” The newspaper bouncing in their hands with every step, Alsmiffy drifts towards the hotel door to peer at the shirt. Their tone is one of evident jealously, tossing an admiring look at it.

Trottimus even raises both eyebrows as he admires it, his own package vanishing into his inventory. Clearly he’s of the same mind as Will in that he wouldn’t ever get caught dead wearing the thing (not while Ross is in the same room, that is).

Alsmiffy’s gaze slides to Will. He thinks it’s a searching look on him. “Is there anything for me?” Prompted by the tiniest bit of hope in their voice, Will checks the list of deliveries and finds nothing with their name on it once Ross and Trottimus have signed.

“Sorry, I got nothing,” He tells them, making sure to sound sorry about it. When their shoulders slump, he’s about to tell them that there might be something in the future, don’t worry, it’s not the end of the world, but lightning interrupts him.

Will leaps half a metre into the air as the other three recoil, wincing as thunder follows the lightning strike, the sound causing Will’s ears to painfully throb. It’d sounded like it’d struck something in the parking lot. Heart pounding and jumpy, it makes him glad he’d despawned his ride before it’d been reduced to a wreck after being hit.

“You can’t possibly think of doing deliveries out in this weather,” Trottimus thoughtfully says with a tilt to his head. He reaches up to pat at a curler coming loose.

“Your Stingray’s a lightning rod,” Alsmiffy adds. Had they seen him coming via the balcony’s window? That strikes Will as oddly alert despite alsmiffy having seemingly chased Ross all around the room.

“You’ll just be blown to pieces out there,” Ross rumbles. His expression practically lights up with a toothy grin. “Come inside and share our dinner with us!” At this, Trottimus and alsmiffy let out sounds of agreement, nodding to one another.

Will coughs into one hand. “Thank you, but I don’t think that’d be very professional of me-” Time to beat a quick retreat.

No sooner than he had declined, Alsmiffy nimbly steps behind him, thin enough to have slipped through the gap between Will’s elbow and the doorframe. “Nonsense, it’ll be fun!” They airily declare, thrusting both hands out.

There are _hands_ on Will’s shoulders, insistently shoving him through the doorway. The rain slicking the bottom of his boots grants him no friction so he ends up doing the exact opposite of digging his heels in, sliding into the room instead. Smirking, Trottimus closes the door with a ‘snap’, locking it.

Unable to protest since Alsmiffy is actually much stronger than they look despite their stick figure of a frame, Will now finds himself standing in a modest room painted a pleasing shade of salmon pink. Alsmiffy releases him, drifting off to the kitchen.

There’s a single King sized bed (the sheets already in shambles thanks to Ross and alsmiffy leaping over and on it in the latter’s quest to retrieve their tie) in the middle of the room.

When he looks to his right, there’s a tiny kitchen, chipped and worn in places but looking functional at a glance. There’s already a kettle on the brink of boiling and a complimentary bar of ration open on the counter. The balcony overlooks the parking lot. Rain still continues to fall with determination, giving Will the impression that he is underwater right now. One corner of the room has a wet patch on the pink ceiling.

Ross strolls over to said bar and picks it up, munching on it. He sits down on the bed which lets out a low moan of worn springs. Trottimus ushers Will over to one of the three chairs. He sits down, hoping that none of them mind the trail of rainwater he’s just left behind on the carpet from standing out in the rain earlier.

Alsmiffy is already combing the fridge, stooping to plunder its depths. They emerge with two chilled bottles of rakk ale, placing them onto the counter. Will feels them giving him an inquisitive look.

He shakes his head (really, drinking on the job, he’s not out to break every rule in the book, not today at least). Not disappointed, alsmiffy shrugs, closing the fridge door.

Trottimus picks up one of the bottles to hand it to Ross. Mouth stretching open to reveal his impressive canines, Ross bites the cap off, tossing the freed cap into the bin before chugging it. Trottimus ignores the second bottle to pull out several meals out of his inventory, heating them up in the microwave.

Alsmiffy begins to set the table with napkins and plastic forks, spoons and knives. They pause to figure out if it’s the spoons or forks that go together on one side or the other. Giving up, they just toss them randomly down. Will has the sudden urge to chuckle at the domesticity of what’s he’s seeing.

Rain continues to pour down, a soothing background noise adding to the odd but comfortable silence. Thunder occasionally accompanies the sound, but muffled and far away this time as the storm moves inland.

Will has no idea what to do with himself (aside from throwing himself off the balcony but he doubts that’ll go over where). He decides to try to blend in by pulling out one of his larger meals. The chair he’d taken creaks as he leaves it, moving to hover besides Trottimus to patiently await his turn for the microwave.

While waiting for the microwave to ding, Trottimus pulls out his package to open it. Will can’t help but give it a sneaky, sideways glance on the lid is peeled open. Surveyor parts are packed carefully inside, packets of air and cardboard stopping them from coming loose and being broken. Trottimus lets out an appreciative sound that’s almost a whistle.

“Finally!” He spots Will looking, unable to disguise his pleasure at seeing somebody else appreciate said parts. “I’ve been waiting for these all week.”

“You tinker with surveyors?” Will asks, more to do with wanting to fill in the silence with small talk and not exactly standing around awkwardly, however these three might be with that. The parts are awfully nice though.

It’s a shame he can’t mail order the parts for his own, an old military turret that’s functional. That is, if functional can be called a machine gun mounted on a freely rotating base that fired at anything that moved in its sights (sans Will).

“I own three myself,” Trottimus informs him with the air of a proud parent, lifting a hand to digistruct one of them. It appears in mid-air, a blue-striped machine that hums, the hover engine almost blowing the hem of Trottimus’ bathrobe up- Will averts his eyes in time to focus on the number steadily ticking down on the microwave screen.

“Stop flashing the mailman!” Alsmiffy hollers from the table as Trottimus lets out an uncharacteristically high pitched shriek.

“Naughty!” Ross lets out a mean laugh, slapping his bare knee with a hand. The empty rakk bottle he’d just drunk from sails into the bin, thumping as it hits the bottom. Will almost jumps at the sound, mistaking it as another clap of thunder.

“I didn’t mean to!” Trottimus hotly retorts, despawning the offending surveyor to pull his bathrobe back down. He turns to Will. “I am so sorry, I didn’t realise that would happen.”

“It’s okay, it happens.” He manages to make it sound like it’s not a big deal, seeing as Trottimus is looking mortified. Will wonders if he can simply heat up his meal and depart with it before Alsmiffy can start stripping in front of him, or something. Just in case, he decides his best not to glance in their direction.

“Ross, are you really going to wear that shirt?” Alsmiffy drawls, sprawled out on the chair with an arm slung over the back of it.

“Yes. It’s a nice shirt,” Ross says, sounding puzzled. He frowns, appearing to put two and two together in his mind. “Why, are you going to burn it?” Suspicion tinges his expression, causing him to leer at them.

“Maybe, if you don’t get me another tie.” The microwave dings. Nobody save for Trottimus pays it any attention. Will’s eyes travel between the two’s verbal tennis match.

“That tie was _offensive_ ,” Ross lies, leaning forward as he emphasises ‘offensive’, the word slithering out from between his teeth. “Nothing should ever be that _red_.”

“Did you hit your head too hard back there? You’re _colorblind_ as a wolf,” Alsmiffy retorts, not buying it. “You could have just told me you didn't like me wearing it.” They settle in the chair, looking at Ross with what appears to be a resentful air.

“Oh. I didn’t think you’d actually stop wearing it if I told you.” Ross gives them a sheepish look from where he’s still sitting on the bed. In the bathroom over his shoulder, Will can spot two outfits drying in the bathtub there, dripping onto the tiled floor. A lab coat is slung over a chair almost out of sight.

“Nah, I’m just fucking with you, I’d have worn that tie all the time if I’d known it’d bother you that much,” Alsmiffy says with a cheeky grin in their voice. Gloves spawn over their other pair, clinking from settling into place.

Ross’s teeth start to sharpen before he’s fully risen to his feet as though he’s about to leap at them. His fingernails are already pointed, knuckles sporting black fur and becoming hairier by the second, an animalistic gleam in his eyes.

Trottimus intervenes in the form of swiftly marching across the room to Ross and thrusting the steaming hot container of skag meat dumplings under his nose. Ross’s attention snaps to it. He sniffs the steam rising, his hands coming up to cradle the offered container.

The changes shrink from his form, leaving a man clad in a fluffy white towel and not anything resembling a creature trying to break out of its human skin.

Will belatedly brings a hand up to his head, feeling the sweat gathered there. The sleeve of his coat erases it with a quick wipe.

“Thank you.” Ross gives Trottimus a look filled with gratitude, forgetting about attacking alsmiffy entirely.

Looking harried, Trottimus just hands him a fork he’d snatched up from the table as he’d passed by. “Don’t burn yourself,” He warns.

“Where’s _mine_?” Alsmiffy whines from the other side of the room. They slump spitefully down into their chair, seeming disappointed Ross hadn’t been goaded into fighting them. The gloves they’d been wearing have vanished into thin air as well.

While that’s going down, Will sneaks his own meal into the microwave, the machine starting to hum as it gets to work on thawing his spicy chicken wings. His mouth is starting to water as the smell fills the air.

“Those are some good rations you have there,” Trottimus’ calm voice drifts from somewhere on his right. Will glances over to find Trottimus digging with a fork into a meal of greasy looking skag meat drumsticks.

“I refuse to settle for the cheap shit,” Will primly says. It’s a matter of _pride_.

There is no way he’ll ever stoop to eating the lowest tier of rations. He'd rather starve to death than ever do so. The container in the microwave slowly rotates, adding to the smell of rain, wet fur and hot dumplings in the room. It’s not a fantastic combination, truth be told. It’s still loads better than the remains of a battle (which sometimes haunts Will in his dreams).

“You must get paid well.” Trottimus takes his attention off Will to bite down onto a drumstick that’s lifted to his mouth.

“Well, the Pandoran Postal Service is always looking for helpers. They pay well.” There’s no harm if he gives them a bit of a tip, right? Freelancers have to look out for one another, provided they didn't get in his way or cause him trouble down the line.

“How much?” Alsmiffy’s head snaps up from the gun magazine they’d been perusing.

“I’m getting paid about three hundred to do one route,” Will easily recalls from what he and Toby had discussed. He sees no harm in doling out that little nugget of information.

“Three hundred-” Alsmiffy appears to stop breathing for a few seconds, sounding like their mind’s just been blown. They lean forward, interest clear in their tone. “You’re _kidding._ ”

“Nope,” Will cheerfully says, conveniently leaving out the fact that he’d spent fifteen minutes negotiating the pay. Fortunately, Toby had been willing to indulge him.

“We could be couriers,” Ross pipes up, spewing bits of food out of his mouth as he speaks. “I quite like the sound of that.”

“Do we really want to be couriers?” Trottimus skeptically points out. “You can barely stop yourself from chasing down one just to see if they have any mail for you every single time one passes us,” He adds.

“I do not chase every single courier I see!” Ross defensively says, his fork clinking as he drops it into the empty container.

“He so does,” Alsmiffy gleefully says. Ross glares at him, his eyes flashing with irritation.

Will refrains from snorting and finally removes his chicken wings from the microwave. He shoves it into his inventory after snapping the lid back onto it. It’ll hold until he finds shelter and eats it, once he's far away from these three.

The smell lures Ross’ attention to him. He is eyeing the chicken with what appears to be ‘hunger’, despite having wolfed down his own meal minutes ago.

“Well, I’m off. I don’t think I’ll die if I step outside now. Thanks for having me!” Will quickly says, having no intention of sharing at all. He’s already out the door before alsmiffy can shove him back inside, taking the stairs two at a time.

By the time Trottimus has reached the balcony to peer over it, Will is halfway out of the parking lot on his Stingray, zooming down the road. The rain is now a drizzle with none of the malevolence from earlier. The lightning and thunder have since moved on to terrorise the open plains to the west.

“He was nice,” Ross muses out loud, mourning that he hadn’t had the chance to try one of those chicken wings before Will had upped and ran for it.

“I’m just glad you didn’t maul him on the spot because on the red shirt he was wearing,” Trottimus says as a jab. Ross shoots him a deeply offended look.

Alsmiffy snorts and picks up another weapons magazine from the hotel’s meagre selection to drool over the rocket launchers, especially the Pyrophobia series. It’s a gigantic shame about the price tag because they could always do with one (never mind that they can barely lift one up to fire it).

\--

\- // Falk is now idle. //-

SherlockHulmes: Falk? It’s your turn to move.

CamBuckland: Falk?

Falk: I’m sorry.

JiǔtóuZhìjīJīng: Are you okay? That’s the third time you’ve been idle in an hour.

LobenTrogdor: You can tell us if you need to have a break.

Falk: It’s not that.

TrellimarAleath: We could do with a break, I need to stretch since my legs are so sore.

EloraGalanodel: Yeah! I could do with getting something to eat too.

Falk: No, no, I can carry on.

SherlockHulmes: We’ll have a break anyway. Everyone take five, I’ll save our progress.

Falk: Really, you don’t have to take a break because of me.

LobenTrogdor: Do you have to go somewhere?

Falk: No.

CamBuckland: Feeling sick? Better get yourself to a doctor just to be safe, plague is hitting places pretty hard right now.

TrellimarAleath: Don’t say that, half the office right now is walking around in hazmat suits the last time somebody sniffled.

TrellimarAleath: Everybody dives for cover if someone so much as sneezes.

EloraGalanodel: Trell’s just joking.

EloraGalanodel: But seriously, if you’re feeling sick, get thee to a doctor.

JiǔtóuZhìjīJīng: If you need money, I can lend you some.

SherlockHulmes: What Jiǔtóu said.

Falk: It’s not that! Listen, I think I’ve done something really bad.

CamBuckland: So long as you didn’t murder someone, you can tell us.

Falk: It’s funny you should say that.

\--

“Here, I need you to find the man this is addressed to.” Martyn hands the plain looking letter over to Matt, looking away from him a moment later.

Matt glances down at it. Sure enough, it’s stamped red text declaring ‘URGENT’. Despite the new badge pinned to his coat pocket, the sheriff of Lynchwood appears distant, his face set with lines of unhappiness.

He also sounds familiar, but Matt can’t place it, deciding not to risk asking if they know each other. Besides, sheriffs probably didn’t have time to play Bunkers and Badasses. The letter goes into the saddlebag. He jumps over the edge of the town on his Stingray (much to the shock of several townspeople, while the sheriff only glances over before turning away to patrol the town).

It doesn’t take Matt long to find the man the letter is addressed to. They’re located in a smaller town just half an hour away, holed up in a dingy motel room. When Matt knocks and the door is answered, he’s almost knocked over by the powerful smell of alcohol and a room that hasn’t let fresh air into it in days drifting out at him.

Empty bottles of rakk ale are strewn all over the floor. Dirty clothing is gathered in lumpy piles. The bed is unmade. The prominent odour of a human who hasn't showered in days accompanies the unshaven man who unsteadily steps up to the doorway.

When Matt’s glance automatically slides from what he can make of the room to the man, the man takes a long swing from the half-empty bottle in his hand, only to belch loudly after

Matt tries not to look disgusted at the man’s potent breath. He settles for an expression halfway between ‘polite’ and ‘neutral’.

“You have mail,” He says, opting to use a clipped tone to betray none of his disgust with the living situation he’s laying eyes on.

“From who?” The man slurs, turning bloodshot eyes on him. He’s dressed in a stained duster coat, a singlet with sweat stains on the chest, dusty pants and one boot. The other one is likely missing somewhere in the room.

He’s not going to to tell the man, just in case, instead handing over the letter. The man leaning on the doorway moves to snatch the letter from him, drunkenly ripping it open.

The man rolls his eyes. He reads the note out in a mocking tone, “He ‘misses me’, can you believe the fucking nerve?” A derisive snort follows.

Matt is careful not to comment. While the man had been reading, Matt has carefully constructed a profile of the man, erasing the stubble, taken away the bloodshot eyes and placed a cowboy hat on the man, plus adding a sheriff’s badge to the duster coat.

He keeps his face blank at the evident connection between this man and the sheriff of Lynchwood.

“Do you want to send a reply back?” Matt is going back in that direction in about two hours. He doesn’t know why he’s doing this man a favor.

“Yeah, hang on.” The man fumbles in his pockets for a pen, miraculously producing one. He flattens the bit of paper on the doorway, scribbling away before handing it over.

There’s no envelope to conceal what he’d written, the sentence having spelled out ‘call me and no, I don’t hate you but it still fucking hurts, what you did’.

\--

\- // LobenTrogdor rolled: even, even, even. //-

LobenTrogdor: All of the dice rolls are even!

\- // SherlockHulmes rolled: one. //-

SherlockHulmes: I. I don’t believe this.

CamBuckland: What?

EloraGalanodel: What?

TrellimarAleath: What’s wrong?

JiǔtóuZhìjīJīng: ?

Falk: :o

SherlockHulmes: I rolled a _one_.

LobenTrogdor: Did I do something wrong?

SherlockHulmes: You didn’t do anything wrong.

SherlockHulmes: Well, except for single-handedly eliminating the next five stages of the final boss fight with just one wild magic spell that I critically failed the check on.

SherlockHulmes: The eldritch dragon turns into a kitten-

EloraGalanodel: Can it be a fluffy white kitten?

SherlockHulmes: The eldritch dragon turns into a fluffy white kitten-

CamBuckland: Can it be a fluffy white kitten with little pink paw pads and squeaks when it’s picked up?

SherlockHulmes: The eldritch dragon turns into a fluffy white kitten with little pink paw pads and squeaks when it’s picked up-

TrellimarAleath: Can we keep the kitten?

SherlockHulmes: The eldritch dragon turns into a fluffy white kitten with little pink paw pads and squeaks when it’s picked up to be kept by-

Falk: Can the kitten be tiny?

SherlockHulmes: The eldritch dragon turns into a tiny, fluffy white kitten with little pink paw pads and squeaks when it’s picked up to be kept by the intrepid adventurers-

JiǔtóuZhìjīJīng: Can the kitten’s name be ‘Billy’?

SherlockHulmes: The eldritch dragon turns into a tiny, fluffy white kitten named ‘Billy’ with little pink paw pads and squeaks when it’s picked up to be kept by the intrepid adventurers-

LobenTrodgor: Can we pet the kitten?

SherlockHulmes: The eldritch dragon turns into a tiny, fluffy white kitten named ‘Billy’ with little pink paw pads and squeaks when it’s picked up to be kept by the intrepid adventurers and is petted occasionally, much to its satisfaction.

SherlockHulmes: Are you all happy now.

CamBuckland: Very ;)

EloraGaladel: I roll to play with the kitten.

LobenTrogdor: I too, roll to play with the kitten.

TrellimarAleath: I roll to steal the kitten from the two.

CamBuckland: I roll to steal the kitten from Trellimar.

JiǔtóuZhìjīJīng: I roll to kick Cam in the groin and return the kitten.

Falk: I roll to admire the kitten from afar due to my cat allergy but nonetheless, enjoy the spectacle of my friends bonding with the tiny kitten.

SherlockHulmes: We have a scene to wrap up! You can’t just play with the kitten and ignore the epilogue!

EloraGalanodel: :(

CamBuckland: :(

JiǔtóuZhìjīJīng: :(

Falk: :(

TrellimarAleath: :(

LobenTrogdor: :(

SherlockHulmes: _Fine_. Give me a constitution saving throw, CamBuckland.

EloraGalanodel: <3

CamBuckland: <3

JiǔtóuZhìjīJīng: <3

Falk: <3

TrellimarAleath: <3

LobenTrogdor: <3

\--

SherlockHulmes: And with that, our campaign is now over. I hope you had fun!

Falk: That was the best ending, ever.

LobenTrogdor: Three cheers for Sherlock, who is the most patient, creative and only DM I have ever had the pleasure of playing with!

SherlockHulmes: You’re making me blush over here, Loben.

CamBuckland: Hear, hear!

TrellimarAleath: A toast to Sherlock, provided everyone has some booze on hand and is of drinking age.

CamBuckland: That I do!

EloraGalanodel: Thank you Sherlock!

CamBuckland: To Sherlock!

TrellimarAleath: To Sherlock!

Falk: To Sherlock!

LobenTrogdor: To Sherlock!

JiǔtóuZhìjīJīng: To Sherlock!

SherlockHulmes: I’m seriously tearing up over here. You’ve been the best players I’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting. You don’t have to stay, now that the campaign’s over.

CamBuckland: Are you kidding? This is the best group ever. I’m fucking staying.

Falk: Same!

LobenTrogdor: I agree with Cam. I’m definitely staying for another campaign.

EloraGalanodel: Definitely staying as well!

TrellimarAleath: Me too.

JiǔtóuZhìjīJīng: I have some sad news, friends.

EloraGalanodel: What is it?

SherlockHulmes: We’re listening.

LobenTrogdor: We got your back, whatever it is you want to tell us.

TrellimarAleath: What Loben said.

CamBuckland: We’re all ears.

JiǔtóuZhìjīJīng: This is the hardest thing I’ve ever typed out, but.

CamBuckland: No matter what you type out, we’re here for you.

EloraGalanodel: Yeah!

JiǔtóuZhìjīJīng: I don’t know if I’ll be able to stay for the next campaign. I’m moving and I don’t know when I’ll be able to come online again.

SherlockHulmes: Jiǔtóu? Permit me to say this, but no matter where you go and whenever you’ll come online, know that you’ll always be welcome in this group.

Falk: What Sherlock said! Sherlock put it better than any of us ever could!

CamBuckland: We’re your friends, Jiǔtóu. Even if you don’t always come online, we’ll always be happy to hear from you.

TrellimarAleath: What Cam and Sherlock said.

EloraGalanodel: We love you, Jiǔtóu! <3 You’re one of us.

LobenTrogdor: One of us!

CamBuckland: One of us!

EloraGalanodel: One of us!

TrellimarAleath: One of us!

Falk: One of us!

SherlockHulmes: One of us!

JiǔtóuZhìjīJīng: I’m crying at my laptop right now.

JiǔtóuZhujJing: Thank you, all of you.

JiǔtóuZhìjīJīng: I’ll try to come online as often as I can.

SherlockHulmes: You’ll always have a place here.

EloraGalanodel: Where are you moving to?

JiǔtóuZhìjīJīng: Pandora.

Falk: Pandora!

TrellimarAleath: Hey, you might be able to meet us!

JiǔtóuZhìjīJīng: I am not sure if I can. I’ll be incredibly busy.

EloraGalanodel: We can always still chat! Just because you can’t meet us doesn’t mean we’ll stop being friends.

TrellimarAleath: Who knows, maybe we’ll run into each other one day.

Falk: Yeah! We might get lucky.

JiǔtóuZhìjīJīng: I don’t know what any of you look like and I doubt you’d want to see me in person.

EloraGalanodel: I’m sure that you’re very cute in person.

CamBuckland: Even if you look like a skag, you’ll always be cute to us.

TrellimarAleath: I disagree with what Cam’s saying, but it’s the thought that counts.

Falk: I always just imagined all of you to be your characters. Is that weird?

LobenTrogdor: So you imagine me as a pink-haired gnome?

Falk: Yes.

LobenTrodgor: I’m actually rocking the pink hair in real life, if that’ll help any of you spot me.

SherlockHulmes: If only I had the gall. My bosses would probably tell me to shave myself bald if I ever did that.

JiǔtóuZhìjīJīng: I’m sure you’d look amazing with pink hair, Sherlock, regardless of what you look like in real life.

EloraGalanodel: Pink hair is amazing.

TrellimarAleath: Does anyone want to watch the new episode of Surgeon Why with Elora and I? I’ve got a link to a stream ready.

EloraGalanodel: Don’t do it, you’ll just be hooked on it like us.

EloraGalande: Just kidding, do it. You won't regret it.

CamBuckland: Why not? I got two hours to kill.

LobenTrogdor: Pass the link here, I’m down for watching it!

SherlockHulmes: I’ve never seen it.

Falk: SherlockHulmes, you must live under a rock. Let us introduce you to the beauty that is Surgeon Why.

JiǔtóuZhìjīJīng: One of us, Sherlock! One of us.

\--

SherlockHulmes: I don’t believe it, he’s back again.

JiǔtóuZhìjīJīng: Is he hot?

CamBuckland: Is he hot?

SherlockHulmes: Why are you two asking if he’s hot?

JiǔtóuZhìjīJīng: Oh, no reason.

CamBuckland: Curiosity.

CamBuckland: But it’s your favourite bandit!

SherlockHulmes: He is not my favourite bandit!

EloraGalanodel: Why does he keep coming back again?

SherlockHulmes: My boss is doing business with him.

TrellimarAleath: Ask him out.

LobenTrogdor: What’s the worst that could happen!

SherlockHulmes: He’ll kill me if I ask him out!

EloraGalanodel: You’re not denying wanting to ask him out.

SherlockHulmes: If he was a normal person, I’d consider it!

CamBuckland: Do it for the ECHOnet.

EloraGalanodel: Yeah! It couldn’t possibly hurt.

LobenTrogdor: YOLO.

SherlockHulmes: Here goes nothing.

CamBuckland: Godspeed.

EloraGalanodel: We eagerly await the news.

TrellimarAleath: Wait, you’re actually doing it?

SherlockHulmes: The goods news is that he didn’t kill me.

CamBuckland: Well, obviously, if you’re here typing.

EloraGalanodel: What did he say?

SherlockHulmes: I asked if he’d consider going out with a friend of mine. He gave me this look and said ‘no’ really bluntly. Sorry, I think he’s onto you, Trell.

TrellimarAleath: That was a joke! You didn’t actually have to ask him out!

CamBuckland: Oh look, you’re still alive. That wasn’t so bad.

SherlockHulmes: Thanks. Now he thinks I’m cracked in the head. I think he’s laughing at me from across the room.

CamBuckland: That rhymes.

SherlockHulmes: I am going to never look him straight in the eye ever again.

EloraGalanodel: What if he’d said ‘yes’?

SherlockHulmes: Don’t say that! I’m having a conniption imagining it!

CamBuckland: What’s a ‘conniption’ and where can I get me one of those?

TrellimarAleath: Wait, were you really asking for a ‘friend’ or for yourself?

SherlockHulmes: You don’t want a conniption. They taste terrible.

SherlockHulmes: The point is that I could have died and he said ‘no’. That’s the end of that.

LobenTrogdor: But you never denied wanting to ask him out, which is what we’re all getting here.

Falk: Wink wink, nudge nudge.

Falk: I’ll be slow since I’m dealing with a bounty hunter and a mercenary here.

SherlockHulmes: Bounty hunter and mercenary?

Falk: The most famous ones from the six galaxies. With reputations like that, I _cannot_ let them leave without them running a few jobs for me!

SherlockHulmes: I don’t know how you do it. Get over here and do my job for me, Falk.

Falk: And deal with mountains of paperwork? No thanks.

Falk: It’s very kind of you to offer, though.

CamBuckland: If I go, can I be a sexy secretary like you, Sherlock?

EloraGalanodel: Cam, that’s a fantastic getup.

TrellimarAleath: I’m going to have nightmares, Elora. Thanks.

EloraGalanodel: Good!

TrellimarAleath: You’re not supposed to say that, you’re supposed to feel sorry!

EloraGalanodel: Well, I don’t.

LobenTrogdor: I’d offer to go in Falk’s place but I’ve got my hands tied full of these minutes that need to be sent ASAP.

SherlockHulmes: No, I’d rather you stay away from my workplace. I doubt you’re ‘equipped’ to deal with my bosses.

CamBuckland: You don’t know what I come with ‘equipped’ with. ;)

SherlockHulmes: I do and it’s with a whole lot of hot air.

TrellimarAleath: Oooohhh.

LobenTrogdor: Sick burn!

CamBuckland: :(

EloraGalanodel: I’d hire you, Cam.

TrellimarAleath: No you won’t.

CamBuckland: Aw, thanks Elora.

Falk: I’d hire Cam too.

\--

There’s a summons in the form of a post-it with Toby’s handwriting on both Katie and Matt’s desks when they arrive at the office. There’s no given reason for the summons.

Harry bids them a sleepy ‘good morning’ as he slouches off to the break room for some more coffee. The incident long ago with the finger guns has since cemented the other courier's friendship and office politics allegiance (a handy thing to have on their side; the miniature drakefruit plant is thriving happily at Katie’s desk).

Under these circumstances, Katie and Matt would have followed in Harry’s footsteps. Their own coffee machine at home has been on strike for the past two weeks now and they’re too lazy to go hunt down a replacement. Since Toby preferred to tell them in person when they’re wanted in his office, Katie and Matt understand that this is highly unusual and out of character.

Toby is only just finishing an ECHO call in a hushed tone, leaving his device out on his desk. He contemplates it with a conflicted look.

When Katie and Matt walk in, he’s immediately back to his old, smiling and cheerful looking self. The two try not to exchange worried glances with one another as they take seats opposite him, pulling the chairs close. The door closes automatically, sealing them in with a brief, suspenseful silence.

“Toby,” Matt evenly says, letting his hands rest in his lap (suppressing the urge to fidget). Katie just gives Toby a puzzled look, her thumbs twiddling and giving away her unease.

“Trell,” Toby mimics but there’s a note of seriousness underlying the attempt at humor. His grin soon fades as he surveys them intensely, both of his hands resting atop one another on his desk. “Elora,” He also belatedly adds.

“What’s going on?” Katie tries asking. It’s not like Toby to ever act so serious, so that just causes both her and Matt to be morbidly curious about why he might possibly want them here. The longer Toby regards them, the more worry takes hold of Matt, lending a shakiness to his formerly still hands.

Upon a thorough search of her memory, Katie can’t even remotely come up with a reason for why they might be fired. Nothing recent, that is.

The war over the office supplies had happened what feels like a lifetime ago, but the effect from it is still felt. There’s an official section in the courier’s operating manual that ‘under no circumstances are disagreements allowed to be sorted out with finger gun duels’.

New couriers might laugh at reading that bit, prompting those who’d been there to witness the carnage to impress on them the level of damage done to their operations and office.

Toby proceeds to look glad she’d decided to ask rather than let him break the ice. He simply wheels over in his office chair to a filing cabinet half a metre away. One of his arms is thrust into the dark confines of one shelf to noisily fish around in it. Katie and Matt watch this in silence, now slightly alarmed.

If he’s looking for the manual, there’s no need to dig it up. Toby’s memorised the manual back to front and could quote it verbatim and backwards, even while smashed on five bottles of rakk ale.

“Gotcha!” He triumphantly extracts a battered looking folder yellowing and dog-eared at the corners. A dust bunny falls out of it when he wheels himself back over to the desk.

“What’s that?” Matt is eyeing it with trepidation, being fired the only matter now on his mind. Katie continues to hold out. They can’t possibly be promoted, seeing as they’re pretty much on the same level as the senior couriers.

“Behold, our company policy on what can and can’t be delivered!” Toby carelessly drops the folder onto his desk, causing dust to explode out in all directions.

Matt sneezes, wiping his nose with reddening eyes. Katie just waves away the dust, staring at the folder as she tries not to breathe in any of it. Toby holds his breath until most of the dust has blown away.

She and Matt (through teary eyes) regard the folder with an equal  mix of wariness and curiosity. The two of them find comfort in that they're not exactly being fired.

Toby flips the folder open, turning it around and pushes it towards them.

Whatever is in the folder only consists only of a single page in tiny font that’s proving excruciatingly painful to read.

Katie’s eyes are soon watering from trying to read it. “Toby, what-”

“We have a very special delivery to make,” Toby briskly says, cutting her off. Matt continues to read with pinpoint concentration, years of reading science fiction novels helping him to decipher the font. This does not escape Toby’s notice at all. “Trell, what does the document say in regards to ah, large and _fragile_ cargo?”

He’s being awfully specific. It only serves to heighten Matt and Katie’s wariness of the situation.

“It says here that we’ll have to use one of the armored buses out back,” Matt slowly reads out loud, having just reached the section about it. He looks up, peering at him with suspicion creeping into his voice. “Toby, what’s going on?”

Toby’s grin makes something of a half-hearted return. “Well, I just received notice about one of our most important deliveries to date.” A hand gestures to the silent ECHO device still sitting on his desk.

“And I’m going-” Katie begins to sigh, having been down this familiar path before many times. Never mind that she’s the current record holder of the most deliveries under her belt, she still wishes Toby didn’t drop news like this on her without any warning.

“Wrooonnggg!” Toby sings, clapping his hands with a genuine sounding laugh. “Trelly-belly’s going along too.”

“Why are you sending both of us?” Matt’s mouth has fallen open. Katie just looks taken aback. “You can’t just risk two couriers on one job!” He’s not even bristling at the fact that Toby’s just called him a nickname that he loathes.

“As I said, this is a very _important_ delivery. It’s worth the risk of sending the both of you out.” Toby doesn’t need to say that ‘just in case one of you dies, the other one can carry on with the job. He leans forward, his voice now soft. “Listen, if you two don’t want to go, all you have to do is tell me. We don’t have a shortage of couriers to send and I can understand if you two don’t want to take the risk.”

“You haven’t told us what the delivery is yet,” Katie points out, recovering with her usual swiftness. Questions are dying to be asked, on the tip of her tongue.

Toby smiles sadly as he closes the folder, returning it to its proper place. “I can’t tell you unless you accept the job first.”

“How far do we have to go and where are we taking the delivery to?” Matt inquires, now feeling brave about asking questions about the job since Katie dared to do so.

“That, I can definitely tell you. It’s all the way from Hollow Point to Three Horns.” The two of them consult their encyclopedic mental atlas of Pandora’s coasts.

“You’re _shitting_ me, it’s a cross-country delivery!” Matt forgets to censor himself in front of Toby, throwing a guilty look in his direction for it. Toby appears not to have minded in the slightest.

“Must be one hell of a delivery to make,” Katie muses. “I hope they have enough to pay for it.”

“They do. I just got the money. They’re desperate to know when I’m sending two of our best couriers to do the job.” Toby leans back in his chair to carefully regard them. “I’m not going to lie. It is going to be incredibly dangerous and it’ll take more than a week.”

Katie and Matt glance at each other, then back to Toby.

“We’ll do it,” They both say at the same time, their voices dissonant and neutral.

Upon hearing their response, Toby looks almost relieved, then almost guilty. Before either of them can point it out, it’s gone once he’s clapped both of his hands together. “Great! you’ll need to scourge up camping gear from requisitions and all that good stuff.”

“Camping gear?” Matt looks confused before Katie leans over to him.

“We’ll be camping, unless you want to drive all the time.” Matt shakes his head. “Don’t you love camping?” She whispers.

“I hate camping,” Matt grumbles under his breath, remembering an incident involving skags chewing up his tent flap that under no circumstances is to be recounted by either him or Katie (witnesses included) unless somebody wants a broken nose.

Toby waits until they’ve leaned away before adding, “I’ll prep one of the armored buses for you. Just a heads-up, you’ll also have to drop off some of our other cargo.”

“Got it,” Katie says, standing up to leave. Matt also rises from his chair, also resigned to his fate.

The two of them leave to go tell Harry that they’ll be away for a week, also wondering what sort of delivery would be that valuable as to warrant Toby sending the both of them? It’s unprecedented. Harry says as much, but doesn’t stop them from leaving, wishing them good luck.

Two hours later, they’re both standing out back. One of the armored buses slowly rolls up to them, the brakes squealing as it slides to a gentle stop. The doors groan open. Toby peels himself out of the driver’s seat. He smiles ruefully at the two of them as he steps down and out.

“The bus is ready to go, just warning you now that the boost doesn't work. Otherwise, it’s full of gas and all the mail to be delivered is all loaded on already.” He gives them an obliging look. “Do try to bring it back in one piece,” He jokes but it’s not really the time or place to do so, so it ends up falling flat. Sensing it, he sighs. “Good luck. You’ll need it.”

“Thanks,” Matt says, not knowing what else to say. They’ve worked together for a long time and just as much as Toby is their boss, he’s also their long time friend. “Oh, what the hell,” Matt grumbles, hiking the strap of his bag up higher on his shoulder and holding his arms out for a hug.

Toby looks surprised, like he’d been expecting some sort of backlash; he allows the hug, clutching Matt tightly. He throws an obliging look at Katie once Matt’s pulled away. She swoops in on Toby, grinning.

He almost lifts her off her feet when he also gives her a hug, swinging her around so that she ends up on the bottom step of stairs leading into the bus.

“You take care of one another, you hear? We’ll have a party once you two get back-” He abruptly stops, unwilling to say ‘if you two come back, that is’. Tears start to prick his eyes, Matt not missing them.

“Toby, we’ll only be gone a week,” Matt points out, rolling his eyes and sliding past Katie to dump his bag in the back.

“We’ll miss you,” Katie says to Toby. Toby only nods, not trusting himself to say anything since his throat’s just clammed up.

Having won over Katie via rock, paper and scissors, Matt takes the driver’s seat, easing it into a more comfortable position. He can barely see out of the bus thanks to the metal plates welded across almost all the windows but a little tweak here and there to the mirrors soon grants him vision.

“Let’s go,” He tells Katie. Katie plops herself down on one of the benches after also dropping her bag off. Toby steps back as the bus starts to pull away, engines wheezing to life.

“Bye!” Katie calls out through one of the windows. Toby doesn’t stop waving, not until they’ve swerved onto the road and taken off.

He closes his eyes and sighs. A statistic he’d come across in the report archives notes ‘to date, nine in ten cross-country deliveries ended up in dead couriers’.

\--

The trip to Hollow Point takes two hours rather than the usual one hour, given that they’d been entrusted with a series of smaller deliveries to make along the way. Matt and Katie tune into the radio, trusting it to stem the gaps between their chatter.

Matt drives, letting Katie pore over the map (not that they really need to, having been this way a hundred times to navigate it in complete darkness with only the light of their Stingrays to guide them) and dictate where they’re going.

It’s slow-going with all the constant stopping, climbing out and dropping off the mail. Eventually, the foreboding cave that forms the opening of Hollow Point soon engulfs them. The bus sighs tiredly as it turns into the dark cavern.

Not wanting to risk colliding with anything that might damage the bus, Matt flicks on the headlights, letting them swing across the well-traveled dirt path ahead of them.

“What’s the address for the pick-up?” He murmurs to Katie, concentrating on steering them safely onto the beginnings of a worn road with a bump. Katie consults their log.

“Make a left here and then it’s the third house on the left.” She watches the line of buildings rotate around them as they end up on an empty street. Curtains are being drawn, blinds shuttering, doors locking as they pass.

The bus stops at a ramshackle shack of a building, hissing as it slows before stopping completely. Katie nervously glances around. The neighbourhood they’re in is lined with deteriorating buildings held up by wooden pieces randomly hammered into place, bricks and sheets of badly rusted metal tacked (as an afterthought, almost) onto all sides for support.

Katie can’t really complain since she and Matt come from a similar looking neighbourhood, but this place can’t help but give her the creeps. It’s probably because the entire place is located inside a dank smelling cave, all the street lamps lit up with electricity; no natural light can exist here.

She consoles herself with that thought. There are also worse places on Pandora to stop a bus in.

Matt opens the door, leaning back to wait. She gingerly climbs down and out of the bus, walking over to the gate. She nudges the gate open with her boot; the rust causes it to screech, the sound causing her to jump.

The path up to the house is riddled with weeds poking out of the pavement and the garden is overgrown with all matter of inedible plant life somehow growing despite the lack of sun.

Careful not to trod on anything, Katie picks her way to the front door and knocks (seeing no doorbell to press). At the same time, she swallows her nervousness and clearly announces, “Hello? We’re with Pandora’s Postal Service. We’re here to pick up a delivery-” She’s interrupted by somebody unlocking the door and heavy bolts sliding open.

The door is then yanked back to reveal a man with dark brown hair that’s beginning to thin and a handsome face with eyes that are filled with suspicion. The moment his eyes land on her uniform, his eyes light up with relief.

“Daisy, they’re here!” The man calls out in a quavering, reedy voice to someone, his voice breaking on the last word. Katie distantly wonders how urgent the delivery is, putting her hand down.

Someone behind him makes their way into the dim light of the room behind him. Katie spies a blonde head of hair, then the round, plump, kindly face of a woman, the darkness concealing the rest of her.

“The delivery,” Katie quickly begins, raising an eyebrow. They don't look like they have anything to hand over now. She doesn’t mind waiting if they want to go and grab it.

The woman called ‘Daisy’ steps into the porch’s light and Katie sees that her loose patch-ridden, pale green dress stretched almost too tightly around her midriff, her small hands resting atop the pronounced curve there.

“I’m your delivery,” Daisy quietly reveals with a rueful smile.

\--

“We can’t take her!” Matt hisses at Katie. They're conferring under the cover of clearing out the back of the bus so that they’ll be able to fit in two cots for their two new passengers.

“We have to! We agreed to do this,” Katie counters as she pushes a bag of mail out of the way to make more room.

On second thought, that can go up front. The back is quickly filling up. It’s strange how much junk they never realised they’ve been carting around with them on the bus until now.

“We never agreed to take humans as deliveries!” is Matt’s equally quiet retort as he folds up one of the benches to tuck it along the side of the bus. He tosses a bag of mail onto the luggage rack above their heads.

“Section 15.6 dictates that ‘anything’ is deliverable by us.” It’s been a long time since either of them have looked at the handbook but that particular sentence had always stuck in her mind long after she’d closed the cover. “They probably kept it vague on purpose.”

“We have the right to refuse! Section 15.8 says just that,” Matt counters.

“Matt, we can’t just leave her!” Katie shoots a sharp look at him, ready to admonish him further.

That renders Matt silent, his silence indicating that he’s probably brooding in lieu of snapping back. The bench’s side clangs loudly as he shoves it back harder than intended, tying it down with the seatbelt straps.

“Toby knew, right?” There’s an accusatory note in his voice.

“He did,” Katie confirms with a solemn nod of her head. “That’s why he wanted to know if we were willing to go.”

“He could have just told us-” Matt snaps his mouth shut, knowing that it’s just an excuse because he clearly remembers Toby having warned them beforehand.

“We have to do this,” Katie says, her tone gentle. “We did sort of know what we were getting into.” The last bag of mail won’t fit into the luggage racks so it’s shoved next to the other one.

Matt’s shoulders slump as he runs an exasperated hand over his face. “Yeah.” He kicks the last bag of mail so that it ends up with its fellows up front.

“Cheer up, it could have been worse.” Katie tries to console him (and herself).

Matt just huffs, stomping to the front and climbs out of the bus, pushing a grin onto his face that feels like he’s lying to the couple quietly talking in front of their former house. A few flour bags (stuffed with belongings with one almost spilling clothes out) are by their feet.

“Hello, I’m Trell, I’ll be your driver, until Elora over there takes over.” He leans down to pick up two of the bags. They’re about as heavy as the saddlebags, posing no problem for him to lift.

Peculier swats at him. “I can take those, it’s no problem-” He starts, moving to help.

“No, no, you just support her,” Matt cheerfully insists, snagging the other two bags as well and striding off down the path with them before Peculier can stop him.

He tucks the bags at the very back of the bus in their own newly designated corner beside the two cots. So far, the bus has two cots crammed side by side with barely enough room for him to stick a foot in the gap between them and the walls of the bus. Traveling by bus on Pandora isn’t exactly luxurious.

Stuffed in front of the cots are about three bags of mail left to deliver and a bench, his and Katie’s bags of camping gear, plus the locked ammo boxes and container of spare guns.

There’s barely enough room for two people to move comfortably side by side let alone try to fit four people inside. Everything else has been moved up to the luggage racks, held in place by netting.

That’s the hand he and Katie have been dealt so they just have to deal with it.

By the time Matt has turned around, Katie is helping Daisy over to the lone bench left on the bus. Peculier watches with a hawk-like intensity from the door of the bus, casting the occasional fearful glance left and right. Eventually, once Daisy is seated (with a grateful ‘thanks’), Peculier climbs on.

Matt slides back into the driver’s seat. Katie sits cross-legged on the floor behind him with her ECHO device in her lap, ready to give directions they both know Matt and her don’t quite need.

Peculier pauses by her. “I can sit on the floor-”

“I insist, Mister Peculier,” Katie says, offering him the only spot left next to Daisy. “The floor’s not that hard and I have a backrest.” She smiles as she happily pats the bags of mail behind her back.

Those bags of mail unexpectedly served quite well as a cushion (or pillow) in times of need. Peculier reluctantly sits down next to Daisy. Her hand slides into his own to give it a gentle squeeze. He regards her with an abashed sideways look.

Matt shuts the door, easing the bus into motion. They leave Hollow Point behind about ten minutes later, emerging into the daylight of the sun. At this point, it’s about to become mid-morning. Light floods the bus. Katie has never been so glad to see the sun again.

The road bumps under the bus wheels as Matt turns onto it, soon cruising at a comfortable speed of sixty.

The radio is a low murmur in the background with the occasional burst of music. One of Matt’s favourite bands (the Bloody Bandits) comes on, his hand tapping out a beat with the guitar riff. It lifts his mood enough for him to stop feeling annoyed at Toby having lied to them (or rather, omitting critical job details).

“So, why are you two headed to the west coast?” Katie inquires, glancing at Daisy and Peculier. Matt doesn’t need much input on a straight road, not until they hit the checkpoint but that’s not for another three hours.

Daisy smiles at her. “Our doctor’s relocated to Three Horns.”

“How long?” Katie gestures to her abdomen.

Daisy replies, “Due any day now but we thought it’d be best to get there early, just in case.”

“Are you two married?”

“We’re planning to get married after.” She delivers a look of pure affection at Peculier, who drops his head, smiling.

Katie resists the urge to squeal or make any other embarrassing noises at the display. Matt would probably tease her if he heard. “Does the doctor know you’re coming?”

“I ECHOed him before we left,” Peculier evenly says. “He’s happy to see us and only apologises that he hadn't been able to make the trip himself.”

“What brings you two to Pandora?”

“Descended from convicts, so I’m a proud Pandoran through and through.” Peculier proudly says with a grin.

“Likewise,” Daisy says.

“And how did you two meet?” Katie unscrews a bottle of water and hands it over to Matt. Matt swigs from it before handing it back without taking his eyes from the road. Katie drops it in the drink holder next to his hand for him.

“There was a genealogy event. I was trying to trace my grandfather’s side and she was the receptionist. I tried to impress her with my family history…” Peculier trails off with a reminiscent look.

“And it worked. We went out on our first date not too long after!” Daisy beams.

“And here we are now,” Peculier quickly says. Katie sees that his hand is grasping her hand a little more tightly.

Unsure what else she can ask about without stepping on toes (and it’s a long road ahead of them), she diverts the talk instead to the route they’re planning to take.

Toby’s map advises that it’d be safest to enter the west coast via the road leading to Oasis. Upon hearing this, the couple glance at one another, then grin broadly.

“Do you remember Oasis?” Daisy begins.

“The hotel owner wasn’t too happy when he found us sleeping in the wrong room,” Peculier reminisces. “I paid him back for the broken lock, obviously and apologised for the mess...”

“Shh, not in front of the couriers!”

Katie refrains from commenting. She hears Matt give a soft sound indicative of smothered laughter and immediately knows that he’s not mad anymore.

\--

The four of them whoop and cheer upon passing the road sign announcing that they’re halfway to Oasis. Katie points out on the ECHO map that there’s a diner ahead. Consulting with the other three reveals glad agreement that a small break in traveling on the road would be appreciated, plus having Matt swap with Katie for driving duty, and refueling themselves along with the bus.

The diner is a squat, bright red and cheerful looking building tucked to the side of a sleepy looking fuel station and a barely functional Catch-A-Ride Station. There are light runners, Monsters and technicals parked outside, though at a glance, Matt can tell that there’s not much of a crowd inside the diner.

Given the size of the bus, they pull up a little ways from the diner where the pumping stations are. Peculier helps Daisy down out of the bus. The two stretch their legs, raising their hands over their heads to protect themselves from the sun.

After a moment, Daisy pulls out a yellow sun hat, pulling it on over her head. She and Peculier walk off, arm in arm.

Matt climbs down after them once the pins and needles in his arms and legs subside, beginning to walk towards the diner. After a minute of deliberation, he doubles back towards the couple.

“Would you two like anything to eat or drink?” Matt offers, trying to look nonchalant. “It’s on the house,” He quickly adds, remembering the state of their house back in Hollow Point.

Daisy and Peculier glance at one another, looking bewildered, clearly unused to the kindness. Peculier’s gaze softens when he peers at Matt. “Thank you.”

“I can’t eat anything from the diner, but Peculier would like anything with skag meat,” Daisy supplies with a smile, squeezing Peculier’s arm.

“Will do,” Matt says, nodding and heads into the diner. He resists the urge to do a fist pump for his good deed done for the day.

Katie refuels the bus and the spare fuel cans retrieved from her inventory. She fills them both all the way to the top. While the ECHO map displays rest spots like the one they’re at on the way, they can never be too careful. Pit stops have been known to become randomly overrun with wildlife or bandits so if they have to skip any, they’ve got extra fuel on board to make up for it.

The diner is tinier on the inside, chromium painted decor and booths filling out the edges of it. Swing doors mark the entrance and exit to the kitchen, while a counter open to it lets the strong smell of fried food fill the air.

A high counter staffed with stools (styled in the same manner as the rest of the decor) rises from the floor. Beside it, a jukebox softly blares tinny songs dating back to his childhood, songs his parents would have loved to dance to.

It’s cleaner than Matt would have expected (always a plus, since it means he can trust the food to not be revolting or hide any nasty surprises). His boots squeak on the shiny black and white checkered floor as he walks over to examine the board above the counter for what to order.

Most of the letters are peeling off, rendering the overhead menu a hodgepodge of nonsensical text and prices. Luckily, he spies a paper version of the menu left out on the counter that he picks up.

The pimply cashier wanders out from the kitchen (pausing in their chat with the greasy-looking chef) upon spotting him. Matt places the orders, doling out the money to the cashier. They smell of stale fat even with a counter separating them from him.

That done, Matt settles on one of the stools (causing a bit of red to flake off more in places), casting a curious glance around the diner and what other patrons are here.

At the opposite end of the counter is seated a figure with white hair munching on a burger, taking large bites out of it. Their elbows are resting on the counter, a pair of fingerless gloves by their right one. An empty, tall milkshake glass sits on a coaster in front of them, the straw long abandoned. His stomach gives a twinge of jealousy at the sight.

Matt can’t help but stare at the black eyepatch tied around their head, concealing their left eye. He chastises himself for being rude a second later, turning away to inspect the menu again. Nobody else looks all that interesting or is seated in plain sight, occupying wall booths.

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees the figure leans forward to grab a napkin from the stainless steel dispenser, wiping off their fingers. They sit there for a minute, face scrunched up in...pain? Discomfort? A second later, they smother a burp (evidently satisfied with their meal, so that raises Matt’s hopes further), tossing the used napkin into the bin and standing, grabbing their gloves and pulling them on.

A hand is lifted to their ear; the conversation they have to themselves is too quiet for him to overhear before the hand drops. They cast a searching glance around the top of the counter, frowning when they can’t find what they’re looking for. The cashier has long since vanished to rejoin the chef (to flirt with them, it would appear, judging by the grins both are sporting).

One of the other figures in the booths hunches down slightly lower, appearing to try to make themselves as inconspicuous as possible.

With startling speed he’d never expected from a figure with such a short stature, they move around the counter towards him. The person hiding in the booth almost slides under the table. The figure has drifted close enough for Matt to see the Hyperion shotgun holstered at their hip and a glimpse of an old scar that the eyepatch doesn't quite fully cover.

A hand extends out, as if to draw the gun and Matt is so sure that he can’t reach his own shotgun in time but not before a gruff voice speaks up.

“Could you pass me the menu, please?” The figure politely requests, eyeing him expectantly.

“Uhhh, here you go?” Matt finds that he’s already handing over the menu that’s peeling away at the cracked corners, once he’s peeled it off the counter.

The figure takes it and peers at it with their lone good eye, appearing to scan it. They hand the menu back to Matt. “Thank you,” They say in a pleasant enough tone before striding over to the cashier (who has since walked out of the kitchen with a goofy looking, pleased grin).

“No problem,” Matt mumbles to their back, glad that they hadn’t wanted anything serious to do with him. This time, Matt is close enough to hear their order.

“Can I get curly fries with a packet of tomato sauce and two more cheeseburgers to go?” The cashier nods, fiddling with the cash machine and takes the cash before the figure retakes their original seat to wait.

Matt returns the menu to the counter, managing to avoid smearing whatever is causing it to stick in the first place on him. The cashier retrieves the bagged food passed through the window, calling his name. Anticipating the first bite he’s had in hours, Matt walks over to retrieve his food; he catches the figure’s eye on the way, the figure giving a friendly nod, both their arms resting on the counter.

Now laden with paper bags stamped with the diner’s logo, his arms are so full that he can't quite pick up his digistruct module when the clip works itself free of his belt and clatters to the floor.

“Bollocks,” Matt grinds out under his breath, turning to set aside the food so he can pick it up. Someone else beats him to it. The figure has scooped it up for him and is holding it out.

“You dropped this,” They idly comment. Matt takes it and no sooner than he’s taken it and picked up the bags of food, the figure’s eye widen and they lunge forwards, shoving him hard aside. He can’t help it: he yelps because no person who’s that short could have shoved him that _hard_.

A gunshot explodes against the counter, sending pieces of plastic and rogue bits of metal flying in every direction. Matt falls into one of the booths, banging his forearm against the table as gunshots start to erupt where he’d just stood.

He lies there for a few moments, stunned by the turn of events and the pain before his ECHO is ringing. “Elora?”

Katie pops up in his HUD. He can see the view rocking wildly from side to side (giving him the impression of a bad homemade film) as she climbs onto the bus, revealing Peculier hustling Daisy onto it, throwing panicked looks at the diner.

“Trell! Get out of there, I can hear gunshots!” She screams at him, the bus rumbling under her hands as she fires it up. “Two people are firing at each other-” A gunshot breaks one of the windows above his head. He ducks out of the call on accident, startled by the sound.

A hundred pieces of glass shards shower down onto the seat and him. Matt snaps his eyes shut, flinging his other arm over his head in reflex. The pieces almost nick his arm, his shield forming a protective layer that causes them to simply slide off him. They scatter and skid off onto the floor, tinkling admits the jarring sound of gunfire.

He sits up to see the figure having drawn their shotgun to fire in the direction of someone hiding behind the jukebox that’s now blaring some sort of rock song. They lob an object that bounces off the floor, only for the figure to simply glance over. Looking entirely unconcerned, they simply reach for it. With a smooth, backwards flick of their free hand, they send it sailing towards Matt.

Only when it’s closer does he see that it’s a grenade, clinking as it bounces on the floor after narrowly missing his outstretched boots. Terrified, Matt impulsively flings himself out of the shattered window, hitting the ground as a ring of fire sets everything alight (including the booth he’d been in just a few seconds ago). It fills the air with an unpleasant smell reminiscent of burnt plastic and metal.

He’d landed on more bits of broken glass and warm asphalt but that’s okay. His shield is only down to 80% and he’s not too badly hurt. Something wet and greasy stains his shirt; he’d been clutching at the bag of food to the point of crushing it against his chest.

Groaning lightly at the ‘damage’, he picks himself up, glancing around for the bus. It’s parked about ten or so metres away. Spotting it, there’s Katie gestures frantically to him from the still open door. Peculier and Daisy also beckon to him, looking frightened out of their minds.

Matt slowly turns his head in the direction of the diner as he stumbles to his feet. Two figures are brawling, gunshots and the sounds of a fight underway escape through the broken windows, mingled with sounds of cursing from one of them.

Not wanting to stick around any longer, he sprints across the open space, hoping that he’s not hit. The other technicals and light runners have long since fled, judging by the multiple tyre marks left in the parking lot. Stray bullets ping at his heels and before he knows it, he’s dived into the bus. The door snaps shut after him. Before he can get up, Katie has thrown the bus into gear, painfully flinging him against the floor.

Daisy cries out from the motion but Peculier is there to steady her, helping her stay upright with a firm hand. Matt’s knee bangs into something as Katie takes the bus onto the road, breaking the speed limit as they speed off into the growing night.

Five minutes later, they all let out a collective sigh of relief that fills the bus. Matt uncurls himself from the protective ball he’d formed, letting the bags of food drop to the floor with oily ‘plops’.

“Whatever did I do to deserve this?” He groans, scarcely able to believe he’s still alive. Never in all his days of being a courier has he ever come so close to death, and in a _diner_ of all places.

“I don’t know, but you know what I can’t believe?” Katie says, still breathless. She lets the bus slow down, still keeping it in motion with her foot planted on the accelerator so that they don’t stop in the middle of the road.

“What?” Matt asks as he picks himself up off the floor to sit upright, still somewhat unable to grapple the fact that he’s miraculously alive and even more so, unharmed.

“You were still hanging onto the food, even as you dived out the window.” Daisy and Peculier’s eyes alight on the food bags. The two start to grin.

“I couldn’t just leave the food behind! I paid for it!” Matt protests as Daisy and Peculier burst out laughing. Katie soon joins in. Matt can’t help but laugh as well, even if they’re making fun of him for being such a cheapskate.

He combs through the contents of the bags before handing them over. Katie and Peculier thank him, Katie propping her bag open on the dashboard to pick at the chips he’d bought, never mind how squashed they are.

When it comes to his bag (the only one left), Matt peels it open and utters another groan, a defeated one this time.

“What’s wrong?” Katie looks in the rear view mirror to see him throw his head back with the sound.

“They gave me the wrong order!” Curly fries, a pack of tomato sauce and two cheeseburgers peek out at him. They’d given him the figure’s order instead. Matt tries not to curse at the besotted cashier for being too lovestruck to do their job properly.

“...Do you want to go back and get a refund?” Katie proposes, earning another bout of laughter and a dismayed ‘No!’ from Matt. Matt settles down beside her to sulkily munch on the food anyway, not wanting rations for the time being.

\--

It’s when Katie starts to nod off that they decide to stop for the night. Katie and Matt insist on letting Peculier and Daisy sleep in the bus while they sleep outside. Matt and Katie unpack their camping gear, setting up tents and sleeping bags.

They don’t build a fire as there’s too much of a risk that they’d be attacked or risk drawing attention to themselves. By the light of an electric lantern turned on its lowest setting, Matt spends the watch with his shotgun across his lap as the others eat their rations and drink from their canteens. The other gun that the bandit had tuned is sitting in a reserve slot in his inventory.

Katie agrees to take the next watch, letting Matt to sleep or at least try to, once he’s eaten. The ground is too hard, even through the supposedly ‘cushioning, bed-like’ cloth of the premium sleeping bag. In the night, there are sounds coming from all around him that make him jump. It’s probably Katie getting comfortable or a scythid prowling close by.

He takes his ECHO device out of his inventory and logs into chat. His gun is right by his head if the need to shoot anything arises.

\- // TrellimarAleath is no longer idle. // -

TrellimarAleath: Anyone online now?

SherlockHulmes: Hello there!

CamBuckland: Hey, what’s up? You’re on rather late.

TrellimarAleath: I didn’t expect to see you two online this late either!

SherlockHulmes: My boss is making me print out a 100 page report that has to be on his desk by tomorrow morning which is mega fun /sarcasm so I'm up anyway.

CamBuckland: My surveyor decided to explode mid-repair so I have to pick up all the pieces and put it back together :D

TrellimarAleath: And I’m in the middle of the wilderness, sleeping by my gun for safety.

CamBuckland: You sure it’s not supposed to be ‘with’ your gun?

TrellimarAleath: I'm sure, Cam.

-//EloraGalanodel is no longer idle.//-

EloraGalanodel: Go to sleep, Trell.

TrellimarAleath: Go back to keeping watch, Elora.

EloraGalanodel: I am! but it's dark and scary out here D:

CamBuckland: Sounds like you two are having a whale of a time.

SherlockHulmes: Are you two camping?

TrellimarAleath: Sort of.

EloraGalanodel: What Trell said! It’s for work, though.

CamBuckland: We could continue with our campaign while everyone’s online?

SherlockHulmes: I’d love to but this report isn't going to assemble itself by dawn so unfortunately, it’ll have to wait until I’m more free.

CamBuckland: That’s a shame. I can’t wait to flex my muscles in this next bit.

EloraGalanodel: it’s okay! We won’t be back until next week anyway.

TrellimarAleath: And our reception out here is bollocks, I might as well just shove my ECHO device up a skag’s arse and get better reception that way.

CamBuckland: I’d like to see you try that.

TrellimarAleath: Coming to you soon: watch Trellimar get mauled by for trying to get better ECHOnet reception using a skag’s butthole.

CamBuckland: But I thought skags didn’t have buttholes?

EloraGalanodel: They don’t!

CamBuckland: What.

TrellimarAleath: What.

EloraGalanodel: They just got the one hole that they use to eat and crap out of.

CamBuckland: wtf

TrellimarAleath: wtf

SherlockHulmes: I look back at chat and now we’re talking about skag buttholes.

EloraGalanodel: What? This very cute lady studying them told me as much when I was delivering her something.

CamBuckland: So when they’re biting us, they’re really biting us with their butthole?

TrellimarAleath: Cam, why would you point that out? I’ll never look at a skag’s mouth the same way again.

CamBuckland: A skag’s butthole, you mean.

CamBuckland: Maybe mouthhole sounds better

EloraGalanodel: It does, actually.

SherlockHulmes: Please stop talking about the mouthhole or whatever, I’m trying to eat here.

TrellimarAleath: Change of subject time! Sherlock, what are you eating?

SherlockHulmes: Nothing, now that you three have successfully turned me off my dinner.

TrellimarAleath: You perhaps misunderstand ‘change of subject time’; it means you make up something on the spot so these three stop talking about buttholes.

CamBuckland: Maybe Trell secretly hates butts.

TrellimarAleath: I never said I hated butts!

CamBuckland: Trell hates butts!

TrellimarAleath: I do not hate butts!

EloraGalanodel: Trell hates butts!

SherlockHulmes: Trell hates butts!

CamBuckland: Trell hates butts!

SherlockHulmes: Trell hates butts!

Elora: Trell hates butts!

TrellimarAleath: Stop!

CamBuckland: Trell hates butts!

SherlockHulmes: Trell hates butts!

EloraGalanodel: Trell hates butts!

CamBuckland: Trell hates butts!

SherlockHulmes: Trell hates butts!

EloraGalanodel: Trell hates butts (sorry Trell)!

TrellimarAleath: I hate you all.

CamBuckland: <3

SherlockHulmes: <3

EloraGalanodel: <3

TrellimarAleath: >:(

SherlockHulmes: I’m on page 34 and only two hours have passed. Wonderful.

CamBuckland: Only fifty billion pages left to go!

EloraGalanodel: You still have hours until sunrise, so that’s plenty of time?

SherlockHulmes: You don’t understand, my printer is the slowest hunk of junk there is and it’s a five hundred dollar machine that’s brand-new.

SherlockHulmes: I haven’t even taken off the protective plastic wrapping yet!

CamBuckland: Are you printing in black and white or color?

SherlockHulmes: Color, since there’s pictures of stuff I have to put in in this report and my boss hates it when it’s all black and white.

CamBuckland: Well, have you tried turning it on and off again?

SherlockHulmes: Cam, you’re not helping.

CamBuckland: How do you know it hasn’t helped unless you’ve actually done it?

EloraGalanodel: What make is your printer?

SherlockHulmes: Hold on a sec.

SherlockHulmes: C4587GHF-5FP.

EloraGalanodel: Do what Cam said.

SherlockHulmes: Did you actually look it up?

EloraGalanodel: Yes! That’s what the ECHOnet is saying.

SherlockHulmes: You’re trolling me.

CamBuckland: We’re just trying to help, honest.

CamBuckland (whispering to EloraGalanodel): Are you actually trying to help or not?

EloraGalanodel (whispering to CamBuckland): Yes, I actually am.

SherlockHulmes: I can see the whispering going on!

CamBuckland (whispering to EloraGalanodel): Oh, okay, I thought you were trying to help me troll Sherlock.

EloraGalanodel (whispering to CamBuckland): I’d love to but Sherlock’s been having a hard time with his boss lately so try to be bit nicer?

CamBuckland (whispering to EloraGalanodel): Shit, sorry. I didn't realize.

SherlockHulmes: Hello?

SherlockHulmes: You two have ditched me.

SherlockHulmes: Trell?

\- // TrellimarAleath is now idle. // -

SherlockHulmes: Trell has ditched me also.

EloraGalanodel: I haven’t ditched you! I was busy looking up solutions to your printer problem.

CamBuckland: Same. But seriously, just turn it on and turn it off again.

SherlockHulmes: Okay but If I lose all my progress, I’m going to be very cross.

CamBuckland: We eagerly await your results with bated breath.

EloraGalanodel: Fingers crossed!

SherlockHulmes: I don’t believe it, it actually worked. Here comes the pagemageddon!

CamBuckland: It knows we’re here.

EloraGalanodel: We can see it. And you!

SherlockHulmes: That’s a little creepy, you two.

CamBuckland: We’re outside your bedroom window. We can see you in your underwear, Sherlock. What nice panties you have there.

EloraGalanodel: They’re very nice panties! Where did you get them from?

CamBuckland: Ha, made you look outside.

SherlockHulmes: I’m blocking you two.

\- // TrellimarAleath is no longer idle. // -

TrellimarAleath: Sorry, I went to go take a leak. What did I miss?

SherlockHulmes: They bullied my printer into working and I am about to block them for being peeping toms.

TrellimarAleath: So, nothing much then.

EloraGalanodel: We helped!

CamBuckland: You can save your thanks until next time, Sherlock.

SherlockHulmes: Oh, shove it up your bum, CamBuckland.

CamBuckland: Kinky ;)

CamBuckland: My body is ready for the tender ravishing, Sherlock.

EloraGalanodel (whisper to TrellimarAleath): Do you want to switch for watch now?

TrellimarAleath (whisper to EloraGalanodel): Sure, if you want to take a break for a bit. I can’t sleep, thanks to this chat. Skag buttholes. I can’t believe it.

SherlockHulmes: Cam, I will shove my five hundred dollar printer up your butthole. Would you like that?

CamBuckland: I’m just getting hard thinking about it.

CamBuckland: Keep talking dirty to me, just like that.

EloraGalanodel (whisper to Trell): Will you be able to drive tomorrow?

SherlockHulmes: I will firmly mascerate your tender bits with this letter opener.

TrellimarAleath (whisper to EloraGalanodel): If you sleep now, I can swap in later so you can nap in the back.

CamBuckland: Hot.

EloraGalanodel (whisper to TrellimarAleath): Okay!

EloraGalanodel: ‘I will slice your tender bits to pieces with this letter opener’ sounds better, in my opinion.

SherlockHulmes: Don’t encourage Cam.

CamBuckland: I take what I can get.

Trell: My eyes. What did I just read?

EloraGalanodel: I’m going to try to get some sleep since I have to get up super early tomorrow. I’ll see you all later!

TrellimarAleath: Don’t leave me alone with these sexual deviants, Elora.

EloraGalanodel: I’m sorry Trell, but you’re on your own! Try to have fun?

CamBuckland: Oh, we’re all here to have fun, I assure you. We might not be family-friendly fun but it’s fun all the same.

SherlockHulmes: This is hell.

CamBuckland: And you’re stuck with me and Trell. We’re going to have so much fun.

TrellimarAleath: Leave me out of this.

\- // EloraGalanodel is now idle. // -

\- // Falk is no longer idle. // -

\- // LobenTrogdor is no longer idle. // -

Falk: I’m finally here, folks!

Falk: What’s going on?

TrellimarAleath: You don’t want to know.

Falk: Did I interrupt something?

LobenTrogdor: Morning, evening, afternoon, all!

LobenTrogdor: Holy moly, I missed so much.

LobenTrogdor: What’s this about skag buttholes?

\--

A cloaked figure is muttering curses and the kinds of things that one should not say out loud in front of one’s grandma, lest they be written out of her will. Of course, not that the figure cares in any way, seeing as they have no living relatives left to offend.

To cut down on time, they hurry across someone’s backyard, hitching up their heavy black robes to avoid letting it catch on the fence they jump, hissing curses at a leashed skag that takes offence to the trespassing.

It’s a bright day and as usual, the sun is a bright speck of white in the sky, shining down. In the figure’s opinion, it’s a horrible day to be outside. Under the cloak, their skin is so pale they might have blended in with a snow bank if they chose to lie down in it (anybody in their cult who suggests that idea is immediately marked for sacrifice).

Narrow red eyes (almost snake-like, thanks to the Quick Change Station) lends them a permanent leering expression. Their lips are thin, typically set in a scowl. After having cut across seven people’s backyards, they’re now standing by the edge of the road.

Those red eyes glance in the direction of the crossing fifty metres down the road, the only place where one could cross the highway without the risk of being run over. Their scowl deepens. If they had eyebrows, they would be furrowed.

They’re late for the cult meeting and as the leader, they can’t afford to miss it or be a no-show. That’d defeat the entire purpose of having these meetings and it’s too late to call the entire thing off.

Everybody is likely putting out folding chairs, mooching off the free refreshments and catching up on holiday plans and weekend trips plus all the inane, human bullshit their followers like to pull when they’re not around.

They still have about twenty minutes if they cut across the road. The figure pauses to look in both directions. No vehicles? A quick hop over the line lands them on the sun cracked tarmac. Heartened by the lack of consequences, the figure takes one more bold step, right out onto the road.

Out of nowhere, an orange light runner crashes into them, only to keep going for several metres before it jerkily brakes, its two occupants confused by the collision.

\--

Xephos has been driving for several hours straight to the point where the road is starting to blur as the double vision from fatigue starts to kick in. They should have swapped with Honeydew an hour ago, but he’s ‘busy’.

Honeydew is preoccupied with polishing his shovel, both booted feet propped up on the rim of the grubby metal railing surrounding the turret. With every jolt the light runner experiences, dirt from his boots is shaken loose and falls in a brown shower, down the side of the vehicle. Every now and then, he stops the furious rubbing motion to inspect the gleam of the shovel as the light bounces off the polished surface.

It’s why they both initially don’t notice that they had hit someone. The light runner had been rocketing along at a hundred miles an hour, so the unfortunate soul (if they could be called that) died instantly. Xephos and Honeydew have no way of knowing that, of course.

Jolted out of their reverie by the bump and dark object being flung aside, Xephos slams on the brakes, almost sending Honeydew flying out of the turret’s seat if it hadn’t been for him grabbing the railing in time.

“Did we just hit something?” Xephos tentatively asks once the light runner has finished screeching to a halt, leaving behind the smell of burning rubber and tire marks on the road. They lift their head, nervous about what they might find if they turn around.

Once Honeydew has recovered from the minor heart attack (his hat almost sliding off his head), he automatically swivels around, still clutching the shovel in one clammy hand. There is a body on the road, taking up both lanes. Xephos and Honeydew glance at each other with open mouths and start to scream at one another.

“Oh my god, what have I _done_?” Xephos’ hands start to claw at their hair, hunching down in the driver’s seat.

“We killed someone!” Honeydew shrieks. “And I’m an accomplice to murder-”

“It was an accident!” Xephos blurts out, gripping their hair to the point of almost pulling out several clumps, fingers going white from the force.

“I’m an accomplice to manslaughter!” Honeydew corrects himself, still screaming every word at the top of his lungs.

“Calm down, maybe they’re still alive,” Xephos breathes, mind spinning with thoughts of how they can fix this. They extract themselves (long legs and all) out of the light runner, jogging over to the body left in the middle of the road.

The figure is prone on their side, arms and legs flung out to at awkward angles, someone in the middle of a troubled dream. When Xephos crouches besides them, there’s no reaction.

Sharply sucking in air between their teeth at the lack of recognition of being approached, Xephos glances around for some sort of stick. They don’t want to actually touch the body with their bare hands, sullying their skin with the stench of murder.

Honeydew toddles over as fast as he can, his trusty shovel at the ready. Holding his breath, he gingerly rolls the body over with it.

A pale, serpent-like face with lifeless blood red eyes gapes at the sky, the head lolling sideways, definitely not breathing or twitching. Drool trails out one corner of their mouth. Neither Xephos nor Honeydew bother to suppress a shudder at the sight.

“I think the poor sod is dead,” Honeydew quietly concludes once he’s pokes it several times in the chest just to be sure. He refrains from saying that the dead person looks like they have some sort of skin condition; their skin looked a lot like scales, particularly on the cheeks. If it’s sunburn, he can relate.

“What do we do? We can’t just leave it out here for the skags.” Xephos wrings their hands as they would a wet towel, glancing at Honeydew for advice, no matter how idiotic it is. That’s how desperate the situation is looking.

If they wrung their hands any harder, Honeydew suspects that they could have twisted them off completely with a motion akin to wrestling the cap off a canteen. Pushing aside the mental image he has of a plastic figure of Xephos with detachable arms (complete with a ‘popping’ noise, great for stress relief, torture, boredom reliever), an idea lazily drifts into his mind. It’s the only idea he has so he leaps upon it instantly.

Honeydew breathes out, then in, straightening up with a determined air and set shoulders. It lends him the impression of trying to appear bigger than he really is. “Don’t panic. I’ve got a shovel and we’re in the middle of nowhere.”

“Surely you can’t just bury the body-” Xephos protests, only to snap their mouth shut, silencing any further argument from themself about the immoral path they’re taking. They almost expect Honeydew to sprout some sort of crest on his head next and start parading around to try to frighten off predators.

Never mind that they’ve already committed a number of other crimes and murdered countless people, this is just one more on the list. What difference does it make, in the end? They’re already wanted for evading payment. It won’t change anything.

It’s not like there’s a police station around these parts to turn themselves into. If they try to leave Honeydew out of it? Honeydew will just say that he’s an accomplice to simply stick like glue to them. Fuck that.

“It’s the only way.” Honeydew pauses to shoot them a grave look. After tucking the shovel in his bandolier, he leans down to grab fistfuls of the figure’s hooded garb around the shoulders. Grunting, he starts to drag them off the road. “You keep an eye out for the police, I’m going to dig a very deep hole.”

“Alright, friend.” Still shaken, Xephos takes up a position by their light runner, flipping up a side panel and pretending to make repairs to it, even though they have no idea how to do so. Nothing to see here, just a traveler fixing up their light runner, move along.

Meanwhile, Honeydew gets to work. It’s the quickest but sloppiest hole they’ve ever dug and yet, it’s deep enough to hide the body. He’s left a few metres above the body to avoid anybody or anything easily digging it up.

Thick rope and some choice metal mountaineering grade hooks inserted at strategic points will help him climb out (which he does, several minutes later, pulling out the hooks as he goes). Those are returned to his inventory.

With the scent of the dry earth and sweat in his nose, Honeydew carefully positions the body beside the grave. A single push causes it to tumble over the side and down, until a dull thud announces that it’s hit the bottom of the hole.

“Later, shitlord,” Honeydew mutters, grabbing the handle of the diamond shovel (so much for the polishing) and dumping dirt back into the hole.

Twenty minutes later, a sunburnt and dirt covered Honeydew clambers up the slope, panting and glistening with sweat. He glances at Xephos, a hard glint in his eyes. “Let’s pretend this never happened and never speak of it again.”

Xephos silently nods as they climb into the light runner and speed off once Honeydew is on board, returning to their original goal of scouting out an armoured bus carrying a precious delivery.

Two weeks later, the Cult of Israphel dissolves into anarchy due to the disappearance of their leader, indecision regarding who should be the new leader, and failing to pay fortnightly rent for their meeting place.

\--

Instead of turning left, Katie skips the turn and continues taking the bus down the main road.

She and the others can barely make out ‘Oasis’ in fading white letters on the rusted metal sign as they zoom by. She turns in her seat to join in the loud cheer that they all send up. Matt delivers high-fives to everyone as he dispenses celebratory glazed donuts, delighting Daisy and Peculier.

The glaze is all sticky and partially melted from having been stored in the box for almost five hours. It’s still delicious, Katie taking care to lick her fingers clean as she keeps her foot pressed down.

Another two hours later, the cheer gives way to wariness. The skulls (each sporting bullet holes right in the forehead) piled around a knocked over stake serves to remind them that they’re now in bandit and pirate country.

Hands clasped on top of her belly, Daisy too falls silent upon seeing Peculier start to scan the terrain with the apprehensive air of alertness that he had upon leaving their home.

Katie and Matt have taken this route countless times and yet, it now feels ominous. The bus continues on, unawares of its passengers’ trepidation. Nobody would dare to attack a courier or else risk the word getting out to the others about refusing to deliver to the area and incur a shitstorm of epic proportions from everybody else living nearby who also cannot receive deliveries.

They soon see why they had a bad feeling: when they turn the next corner (located hundred of miles from the turn they’d skipped) and enter a canyon road, bandits and pirates are about to engage in all-out war far above their heads.

“This canyon belongs to Jock Fireblast, Angus Eyeglass and Isabel Antioch of the Dread Pirates!” screams a pirate with a flaming red coat and a ruddy complexion. Their flintlock pistol cracks as they fire on the bandits standing on the other side.

A few of the pirates close by them edge away from the flecks of spit flying out of their leader’s mouth. The two pirates standing besides the screaming pirate roar agreement, scarves and coats fluttering in the wind, guns rising up to take aim on the foes standing opposite them. Skiffs back up the rear of the gathering, not drawing close out of fear of being destroyed far too easily.

“No, this place belongs to the Skylords Lysander and Jasper!” A bushy moustached bandit bellows across the gap. The similarly moustached bandit besides him fires back with an assault rifle, taking a moment to reassuringly squeeze the other’s shoulder before doing so. “My ancestors staked a claim on this place before you pirate scum did!”

The horde of bandits backing them jeer midway through the claim, making obscene gestures, the many sounds of weapons and rocket launchers being hefted up. Gunfire and projectiles streak across the gap from technicals and Monsters serving as cover and barricades.

“No, your ancestors drove ours out, so we have the right to reclaim it!” More accusations fly across the gap as both sides start to properly open fire as they charge into the fray. Fighters from both sides start to leap over the gap with grappling hooks. Bridges (crafted from all manner of material, including a toilet seat tied to several thick pieces of driftwood) are being tossed down for those who can’t make the jump.

Both sides meet in the middle atop those, clashing furiously with screams, cries and shouts filling the air. Explosions and gunfire pepper the landscape. Already, bodies are falling down into the canyon. Those who aren’t dead will meet a grisly fate on the pointed rocks below them.

The bus cruises right into the middle of it. Both sides spot the logo of the courier service painted on the sides and immediately stop firing.

Peculier and Daisy shoot nervous glances up at both sides, who are glaring at the bus with evident hostility. A few bandits and pirates are poised to punch the living daylights of each other, fists raised in the air but until the bus has sped off, will remain frozen on the spot. Nobody dares to move.

Near the back of the pirate’s side of the conflict, one fellow encased in a deep sea diver’s outfit moves to retrieve their wayward harpoon. Out of the round port serving as their window to the world, a short figure is rapidly scurrying out of sight to try to avoid being spotted.

Unsure if it’s just a mutant skag, the pirate squints, lifting a metal hand over their eyes. Something that looks awfully like their gang’s gold glints.

Zooming in, they spot hairy, sunburned and dirty bare arms carrying several bags of their gang’s hard-earned gold (from extorting the local, terrified populace), short legs taking them as fast as possible away from the fighting.

The pirate elbows through to the front, dashing over to Isabel (who is reloading her pistol with a scowl on her scarred, tanned face), tugging on her scarf and pointing. She glances over, expecting to see nothing warranting her concern that her first mate can’t handle (a fellow who always wore a welder’s mask and spoke in a monotone).

“Oi, that’s our gold!” She shrieks, pointing. Half of the pirates turn to see where she’s pointing, issuing indignant shouts and enraged curses (the populace hadn’t been willing to part with their gold that nicely). The other half remain focused on the bandits, still glaring daggers at them.

The half that does turn to see start to chase after Honeydew, who has broken out into a cold sweat. Down below in a gully hiding them from sight, an irate Xephos has finished replacing the light runner’s flat tire. They’re only just pulling their coat back on when Honeydew races past them and dives into the turret, the bags of gold jingling.

“What’s going on?” The yelling draws closer. Xephos erroneously assumes it’s part of the fighting.

“Drive!” Honeydew yells, breathless from having run so fast. Fuck having short legs but they’ve got pirate gold now which was well worth the risk of having explored while Xephos hadn’t been paying much attention.

Xephos raises an eyebrow, only to hear gunshots as the first few pirates stick their heads out over the gully. The sounds startles them into action. Not wanting to get shot, Xephos vaults into the driver’s seat, slamming on the accelerator a second later.

A few of the pirates have clambered onto skiffs, firing the skiff’s weapons as they come into sight. Harpoons and machine gun fire narrowly miss the light runner as it starts to pick up speed. They’re going too fast to avoid a rocky outcrop that’s perfect for boosting them up. It deposits them onto the same level as the other pirates. Xephos twirls the steering wheel as they land, narrowly missing a skiff.

“What did you _do_?” Xephos yells, still not having put two and two together. They yelp as a harpoon whizzes past their head, cracking a rock in half.

“Nothing!” Honeydew lies, manning the turret and knocking down a pirate, blood spurting out of their chest and back.

“I told you not the wander off!”

“Fine, I might have nicked some of their gold!”

“Give it back!”

“No! It’s mine now!”

A harpoon narrowly misses Honeydew’s head. He slides lower into the turret. “Oh, _fine_ , I’ll give half of it back,” Honeydew grumbles and carelessly tosses one of the gold-laden bags.

It flies over the edge of the canyon, only to land on the roof of the bus with a bump. It starts to roll on the metal until the rope keeping it tied shut snags on the roof racks. The gold inside clinks.

“What was that?” Katie wonders out loud, keeping her eyes on the road despite the powerful impulse to turn around to see what it might have been.

“I’ll check,” Matt volunteers. He makes his way to the back of the bus, mumbling ‘excuse me’ to Daisy and Peculier as he slides past them.

The hatch to the top of the bus is flung open, gracing the inside of the bus with dry, hot air that sucks all the moisture from his lips and nose. Matt glances around and spies the bag of loot. Not knowing the valuable contents it contains, he automatically reaches out and takes it, withdrawing into the safety of the bus with it. The hatch to the roof is slammed shut.

“It’s a bag,” He announces, wriggling the knot open and _gold_ almost spills out into his hand. Eyes wide, he draws the cord tight before stuffing it into his inventory.

Several metres back, a pirate turns to report the theft and have come to the conclusion that the the courier taking it is in league with the robbers and thus, ‘everybody who ain’t fighting the bandits should now shoot at the bus!’.

Gunshots ping off the back of the bus, smashing one of the tail lights.

“What gives?” Katie growls and honks the horn, peering into the rear view mirror to see skiffs bearing down on them. They haven’t done anything wrong, unless...she squints at Matt, who automatically tries not to look like he’s done anything to incriminate them.

“I think Mister Trell here just took something valuable of theirs,” Peculier informs her, unable to ignore the theft.

“No I didn’t!,” Matt counters, making a shushing motion with his hands. Daisy raises an eyebrow at him but remains silent.

“Trell,” Katie begins in that chastising tone of hers that Matt now associates with an upcoming ass-kicking, “give them back whatever you took.”

Matt takes a deep breath before arguing back with, “It’s mine! Somebody didn’t want it, they threw it and I found it!” He doesn’t care if he sounds childish.

“You can’t just-” A skiff rams the bus from behind, causing it to lurch forwards and the left wheels to skid on the road. The pirates aboard shake their fists, sunburned faces set in expressions of indignant rage. Katie manages only just to get the bus back under her control, cursing profusely under her breath. Any other time, she’d have apologized for swearing in front of Daisy and Peculier. “That’s it!”

She swerves the bus so that it broadsides the skiff, sending it flying into a canyon wall. Daisy and Peculier cling to one another to avoid being thrown off the bench. The pirates onboard scream as the skiff explodes, the other skiffs swerving to avoid the wreck.

“See, they’ll still kill us even if we give back the loot,” Matt takes the chance to hastily point out as Daisy and Peculier properly reseat themselves onto the bench.

Katie grits her teeth and slams down on the accelerator, fuck the speed limit, they’re not going fast enough to get out of here. The bus gives a mighty roar that everyone aboard feels, their bones shaking with the motion. A drooping rusty sign announces ‘MOUNTAIN PATH AHEAD, PLEASE DRIVE WITH CARE’ as the end of the canyon comes into sight.

In the rearview mirror, she can spot more skiffs making their way down towards them, the flying metal ships crawling down the walls like spiders descending from their webs.

She grimly hopes that the bus will be able to climb the upcoming slope while being chased. Rocks start to ping off the side of the bus as they round a curve and head straight for the mountain path.

“Matt, get ready to defend!” She calls out, seeing that skiffs are still bearing down on them without mercy.

“On it!” Matt scoots to the back of the bus, drawing his shotgun and keeping an eye on their pursuers. He’s still not handing over the gold, so sure that they’re in too deep now to simply return it and bet let off nicely.

In the right hands, that much gold could earn him and Katie a new apartment makeover, plus have more than enough left over to refurbish the post office so that everyone is no longer crammed into tiny office spaces and afford a second sorting machine.

The shotgun’s not going to do, so Matt exchanges it for an SMG, firing at the nearest skiff. Electrified rounds glance off the side of it. The gun starts to vibrate under his palms as he empties the magazine. He’s no marksman, so his shots don’t quite hit as many as he’d have liked but he’s proud of hitting a few.

“Here, use this!” Matt drops the key to the ammo and gun box into Peculier’s cupped hands. Peculier picks the first gun out of the box (an assault rifle) and swaps places with him as he climbs back to reload. They both retreat into the bus as rounds ping off the back of the bus, whistling past them.

The ammo box slowly empties as they keep up the defense. That box and the guns were simply not intended to be used for extended combat. Until now, Matt has never been so glad that the bus is armored, the plates taking the brunt of the shots.

Peculier recoils like he’s just been stung. “I’m hit!” Peculier slaps a hand to his arm where a slit of a wound is spurting blood. Matt forces him back down inside, slamming the hatch shut.

Daisy is already by his side, peering at Peculier’s arm. She reaches down to tear off a bit of her dress and carefully fashion a crude bandage, wrapping it around Peculier’s arm. “It’s shallow,” She concludes, clearly relieved as she tugs on the knot to make sure it holds.

Peculier is looking at her with the most besotted expression Matt’s ever seen in his entire life. He hopes the two of them don’t kiss because that would be incredibly awkward (though Katie would have probably applauded). The medkits are lost in all the junk trussed up on the luggage racks.

A little ways behind on the bandit side of the fight, a Stingray and a technical full of passengers run over several of bandits in their rush to find the right road up to Oasis.

“Coming through, sorry, not sorry, mind your heads,” mutters one Will Strife as he unloads a barrage of missiles upon the bandits who have turned to fire on him.

His shield ripples as it takes the hits for him. Annoyed, he accelerates and promptly impales a bandit who hadn’t gotten out of the way in time. He leans forward to swiftly kick the corpse off the front grill before sitting back down, keeping up with the technical beside him.

Nanosounds hammers the technical horn constantly, bandits getting crushed under the wheels, flung aside from being rammed or are diving out of her way to avoid getting run over.

“I told you to turn left, not right!” Rythian shouts at her from the turret. Under his hands, the turret is continuously spewing out buzzsaws that skewer and slice bandits, both suspecting and unsuspecting.

“Left would have taken us back in another circle and we’re already late for the rendezvous!” Nanosounds snaps back, gnashing her teeth as she guns the engine to run over another unlucky bandit. The technical bounces as it drives over the body.

In the back of the technical, Lalna busies with pretending to shoot at the bandits who are firing at them. He is not fooling one unimpressed Lalnable who is sitting in the back with him. Lalna stops making gun noises (putting away the screaming gun) and turns to face him with a sheepish grin.

“I’m out of ammo,” Lalna explains, giving a small, nervous chuckle that soon dies.

Lalnable continues to deadeye him, his arms still folded across his chest (as they have been for the past two hours, forced to endure Lalna’s attempts at small talk and arm repairs under his watchful, disapproving gaze).

Nanosounds and Rythian are too busy arguing, Nanosounds having turned in her seat to angrily gesture at the road with only one hand on the wheel. Rythian has also stopped shooting with the turret to similarly do so, save with both hands.

They don’t see the edge of the canyon until the first two wheels of the technical hit empty air, the rest of the technical soon following. Only Will spots the problem from afar.

“Nano, brake!” Will shouts but the warning comes too late.

She and Rythian whirl to face the front, eyes widening as they realise what’s about to happen. The technical makes a leap of faith. Rythian inwardly groans because this is precisely why he doesn’t like Nanosounds driving.

At that precise moment, the courier’s bus passes underneath, still being dogged by skiffs. The shadow of the technical overlaps it so it and the bus form a cross-shaped outline.

The technical lands with a gigantic crash on top of the bus, all four wheels spinning wildly but otherwise, trapped. Both passengers and drivers of the vehicles wonder what had just happened. Will snaps a picture via his HUD before making his Stingray jump to join them. Angry bandits not tangling with the pirates start to pick themselves up and round up vehicles to pursue.

“Now _what_?” Katie snaps, glaring up at whatever had just landed on the roof of the bus. “Matt, go see what it is this time and if it’s more gold, just toss it off the edge.”

Matt is reluctant because whatever had landed sounded _big_. One look from Katie and he’s already fumbling with the hatch to flip it open, only to come face to face with the side of a technical and two puzzled, almost identical faces peering down at him. “What the-” He forgets about shooting, his mouth falling open as they stare at one another.

“Doctor Lalnable!” Peculier shouts from the inside the bus, having spotted him over Matt’s shoulder.

“Peculier?” Comprehension dawns on Lalnable’s harassed looking features. There’s a dim-looking courier staring up at him from inside the bus.

“My wife is here with me! We were on our way to see you but we-” Peculier begins but upon the mention of Daisy, Lalnable shoves Lalna out of the way (Lalna giving a small yelp as he’s flung aside, clutching at the frame to stay on rather than fall).

“Move out of the way!” Lalnable sharply orders Matt. Stunned by the authority in his voice, Matt meekly shifts to the side, allowing Lalnable to climb over the side of the technical, down the hatch and into the bus.

“Who-” Katie has only just spotted him climbing down, a gun spawning in her hand.

“It’s our doctor!” Peculier hastily explains before she can shoot Lalnable. He moves back onto the bench to give enough room for Lalnable to move.

“Doctor?” The gun vanishes from Katie’s hand. She's made deliveries to this man before, so she knows he’s not an immediate threat. Even knowing who he is, she still doesn’t relax, remembering that they’re still in the middle of a sticky situation. In the distance behind them are several explosions as someone in red darts around, firing on their pursuers.

“I was on my way to meet you halfway but thanks to the incompetence of the Vault Hunters I hired to escort me, I ended up taking detour instead,” Lalnable sarcastically explains with an annoyed jab of his thumb over his shoulder at the people still on the roof. Through the hatch, he can still hear Rythian and Nanosounds continue to argue.

“Hey, we got you there in the end!” Lalna shouts down at him, sounding defensive. He scrambles for the hatch as buzzsaws slice the road besides them, climbing down. Lalnable’s lip curls as he’s forced to squish up against the side to let Lalna drop down. Lalna smiles at him as he passes.

He squashes up on the bench, ending up next to Peculier. The two awkwardly grin at each other with the air of two people who are unsure how to converse given current circumstances.

Lalna looks away. He’s never been inside of an armoured bus before, so he’s eagerly taking in his surroundings. His gaze crosses over the dashboard. If it weren't for the snappish looking woman driving, he’d be over there and examining it in a heartbeat.

So many buttons! What do each of them do? One of them looks like the boost, which confuses him. What need would a bus have for one of those? He has little time to wonder as the red-haired woman driving whirls around, looking visibly unhappy with the newly developed situation.

“No more people in the bus-” Katie shouts. It’s getting awfully crowded on the inside and she can’t quite see the back with all the heads blocking the view behind them.

Rythian sticks his head down the hatch, appearing upside-down. One hand keeps his scarf from falling off him. “We’ll cover you from up top,” is all he says before he pulls back, flipping the hatch shut before Katie can swear at him and wonder who the hell he is.

The resulting vibrations from the technical’s turret add to the rattling and shaking of the bus.

“The bus can’t go any faster like this,” grumbles Katie, yanking the steering wheel to the side as the bus starts to climb the mountain, the sides of the canyon having fallen away to open air. They’ve lost a lot of the speed they’d gained back there, so the bus isn’t moving as fast as she'd like.

Behind them, Will has spent the entire time dodging obstacles, strafing and turning circles as his Stingray’s missiles continue to lock onto targets and decimate them. The front turret has never stopped, adding to his kill count.

Satisfied that there’s no more targets for the time being, he cruises up to the side of the bus while there’s still room to do so. His thumb hurts from how he’s had to keep it pressed against the button to fire the turret and he's sure he’s going to hear the rear turret overheat any second.

“I think we’re clear for now!” He shouts. Nanosounds cheers from the back of the technical.

“Alright, who are you people?” Matt demands, now that there’s some sort of proper, albeit semi-awkward silence in place now that they’re not being shot at. Lalna grins at him, shrugging when he glances around the interior of the bus.

He jumps up when Lalnable grouses at him, “Out of the way, I need my patient to lie down.”

“Sorry,” Lalna mumbles, retreating to where Matt is.

Lalnable busies with helping Daisy from the bench onto one of the cots, pulling out a bunch of medical equipment from his pockets that go onto the other cot.

“As I mentioned before, they’re Vault Hunters.” Lalnable absently says, checking Daisy’s pulse. He sniffs after, wrinkling his nose but satisfied. “Leave them alone so they can do their job while I do mine.”

Lalna looks mildly surprised that he’d say something nice about him and his friends but before he can say anything, Lalnable has since resumed checking the rest of Daisy’s vitals.

On the other hand, Vault Hunters! Katie would have thrown a surprised glance at Matt if she could have. She didn’t think any still existed (there’d been so many years ago; what had happened to them that there’s only a handful left?). Thinking on the same lines, Matt is silent for about three seconds before Lalnable’s abrasive manner has sunk in.

He glances at Peculier before leaning over to whisper, “Is your doctor always like this?” In the all the times Lalnable’s interacted with him and Katie for getting delivery signatures, he barely ever said anything that isn’t an irritated ‘thanks’.

Peculier and Lalna both silently nod- Will’s startled yell breaks the silence in half. Matt would have wondered if that was Will Strife he just heard outside, but then a whistling sound is all that he registers hearing.

A split second later, the entire bus shakes as a metal hook shreds some of the armor plates and metal underneath, leaving the inside of the bus open to attack from the side and above.

Broken glass flies out in all directions, the luggage rack falling and dumping bags and objects onto the floor, colliding with unsuspecting heads and flailing limbs. Katie, Lalna and Daisy shriek, Lalnable’s head snapping up in surprise. Matt and Peculier have recoiled from all the glass flying out at them.

Unnoticed, Lalna’s shield is dislodged from his belt by a medkit, flying onto the floor with everything else knocked loose.

The technical madly bobs on top of the bus, fortunately still stuck. Startled but having swiftly recovered, Nanosounds and Rythian both glance around for the offender. The pieces of the bus litter the ground far behind them.

Several bandit technicals roll up besides them, the bandits starting to open fire as well. One of them drops the formerly hook-loaded rocket launcher they’d just used into the back of their technical.

Guilt floods Will’s insides, seeing as that hook had been meant for him. There’s no time to kick himself, already rising from his crouch on his Stingray to fire back in revenge, welcoming the challenge.

Having witnessed the attempt to impale Will, Nanosounds and Rythian are also firing back with gusto. Rythian briefly pauses to teleport the driver out of one technical and leaving them rolling in the dust. It runs into the tentacle in its path Nanosounds summons.

The rest of the technicals catch onto their tactics, swerving to avoid the two’s abilities and firing a stream of buzzsaws that ping off the sides and back of the bus. Several glance off dangerously close to the rip in the bus.

“Turret out!” Will shouts, dropping his turret onto the exposed hole on the side of the bus. The magnets on the turret’s feet latch onto the metal of the bus. The turret unfolds, locking onto the nearest technical and destroying it with a burst of gunfire that shreds it and the bandits apart.

“I see you’ve been busy with your gun,” Rythian observes dryly and with an impressed look on his face.

He realises what he’s just said and snaps his mouth shut, trying not to flush; Will raises both eyebrows at him in response as he makes another pass. Rythian takes a moment to wonder if Ravs’ prolonged influence is finally having an effect on him or if it’s just because he’s been out in the sun for too long again.

Skiffs draw up beside them on the other side, some sort of silent truce between them and the bandits now in place. Will, Nanosounds and Rythian glance at them in alarm, turning to fire on them as well.

“My turret can’t reach that far!” Will shouts, dropping his speed so he doesn’t collide with the bus to confront one of the skiffs. A harpoon almost skewers him off the Stingray, causing him to spin. Rythian is forced to duck into the turret to avoid losing his head to another.

One of them bounces off the technical, repelled by the metal plates. Before it falls away, Nanosounds seizes it in one hand and deftly lobs it back, nailing a pirate right in the groin (much to the shock of his fellows as he starts screaming to ‘get it out!’).

She laughs, only to make a disappointed face when she then spies that Rythian and Will are too busy ducking and dodging to have seen it.

Lalnable snaps at whoever’s just jostled him, still busy with double checking Daisy’s vitals on his ECHO. He misses Lalna exploding out of the hatch in the roof of the bus, flinging Larry Robert at the nearest skiff as he would when pitching a baseball at a batter.

Larry Robert unfurls mid-air. When it starts to drop like a stone, it flies up, unloading two rockets that leaves a skiff charred, the explosion having consumed the riders. Leaving a fiery trail as they fly, Larry Robert swings around to fire on the rest of the skiffs. Some of the skiffs dodge the rockets, throwing taunts back in return.

Lalna swears and bangs his metal fist on the roof. He's about to order Larry Robert to switch to guns, knowing that there’s only so many rockets that can be fired. Rythian coolly regards the chaotic scene with the air of someone surveying a puzzle and he now has the missing piece.

“Don’t switch just yet,” He tells Lalna and extends his hand. One of the rockets Larry Robert had fired that’d veered off course vanishes. Rythian redirects it into the underside of a skiff, sending it flying into another, knocking it off course.

“Take that!” Rythian whoops and claps both of his hands, laughing.

Lalna shoots him an admiring look, beaming at him (nausea rolling like a stone in his gut). Rythian awkwardly coughs, pretending he hasn’t just reacted as such. Lalna’s grin tells him he’s not likely to forget it so soon. He also tries not to think about how many have people have just died.

One of the pirates on one of the surviving skiffs is toting a rocket launcher, about to fire it at the bus.

Gunfire from the left tears through their body, riddling the skiff’s deck with bullets. The rest of the pirates dive for cover, the driver whirling to confront the newcomers, teeth gnashing at having been denied payback. The body riddled with bullets topples over the edge, unable to fire the launcher tumbling after them.

A light runner pulls up beside the still floating skiff, a tiny figure leaping onto the deck. Honeydew proceeds to duel the sword wielding pirates armed with just a diamond shovel. The shovel flashes as Honeydew deflects several blows, grunting as he swings time and time again, pushing his attackers towards the edge of the deck towards Xephos.

Keeping the light runner as level as possible, Xephos has taken manual control of the turret, their head craned to anxiously follow Honeydew’s movements. They fire upon any pirates trying to sneak up on Honeydew, teeth gritted from having to divide up their attention between the fight above them and the road.

Will drifts over to help, his Stingray’s front gun clearing the deck of pirates as well. The skiff starts to slow without anybody driving it. Honeydew leaps back onto the light runner, panting from the effort of duelling but grinning victoriously. He high-fives Xephos, who twists back around in the driver's seat, glad that that’s now dealt with.

The last skiff is flipped by a tentacle sprouting directly underneath them that flings them back the way they came. It vanishes, Nanosounds putting down her hand (silently thanking Rythian and Lalna for the idea).

Now that the skiffs and technicals are taken care of, Will, Xephos and Honeydew rejoin the bus. Everyone but Katie catches their breath. Those on the bus eventually wonder why they aren’t going any faster to ‘why aren’t we moving much at all’, as the mountain road becomes a single-lane path that curves upward with the treacherous mountain edge.

The problem is that the bus now refuses to climb the steep slope thanks to the technical trapped on it; the additional weight prevents the bus from gaining the momentum it needs to do so.

“Get out and push,” Katie orders Matt without turning around in her seat.

“I can’t push the bus by myself!” Matt objects, sounding horrified by the cruel order. Katie grins at him; Matt sees her reflection in the window, flushing upon realising that she’d just been joking.

“But seriously, we’re stuck, we need to do something or else we’ll never get off this mountain,” She bluntly says. The bus starts to roll back down the mountain, millimetre by millimetre as the needle on the speedometer slowly starts to fall.

“I have a better idea!” Lalna shouts from the back of the bus. He opens the hatch once again. This time, he shouts for Larry Robert, Xephos and Honeydew to use their combined strength to force the bus up the slope.

“What if we use the light runner’s boost too?” Honeydew shouts back. Xephos looks like they detest the idea, judging by the chagrined look they throw at him that he misses.

“Sounds good!” Lalna responds. He climbs back down into the bus and relays the plan to everyone.

“Everybody should probably hang onto something!” Katie adjusts her seat, accelerating the bus to the point where the engines strain and emit a whine that alarms Lalna and Peculier.

The entire vehicle shakes and rattles more than ever, metal plates and window panes vibrating madly as it protests going up to the slope with the air of a stubborn mule scenting deep water and not wanting to cross it.

Behind them, Will despawns his turret to see if it’ll help. The bus is gently bumped as Xephos positions the light runner behind it, their face pinched in concentration. It still manages to startle Lalna, who latches onto the metal bit on the back of the bench to avoid falling over.

The bus starts to move slowly, still groaning even as Xephos guns the light runner’s engine, Honeydew shouting encouragement.

Larry Robert lands to the right of the light runner, both arms coming up to push as well. When the bus refuses to budge, Xephos thumbs the boost button, causing the light runner and the bus to shoot forward. Larry Robert takes to the air to avoid being left behind.

“It’s working!” Matt excitedly shouts. Luggage rolls around his feet. A loose bag hits Lalnable in the back, causing him to swear at nobody in particular. “We’re going up!”

“There they are!” Distant shouts elicit a flicker of alarm from those who can hear them, right when the light runner’s boost dies.

“I’ll go and hold them off,” Will grimly says, turning his Stingray around.

“Wait, I’m coming with you!” Nanosounds yells from the still stranded technical. Will rolls up behind the light runner as she clambers down out of the technical’s driver seat. Slowly, with care as to not dislodge the technical by unbalancing it, she creeps to the end of the bus.

To Rythian’s alarm, she leaps from it to the light runner. Honeydew and Xephos duck down to let her have enough room to move and avoid being stepped on, respectively. She leaps onto the Stingray Will spawns for her. She and Will speed off back down the mountain, almost careening into the metal railing.

“We’ll catch up with you lot later!” Will’s shout barely manages to reach them.

“We’re going too!” Honeydew orders. Grumbling, Xephos turns the light runner around, barely managing to do so despite the narrow confines of the road. Rythian hopes that the four will be okay, silently watching the entire scene with apprehension in his eyes.

“Wait, don’t go, the bus can’t make it up without your help!” Lalna calls out through the hole in the bus but it’s too late, they’re already leaving dust clouds behind. His heart sinks.

Wait, didn’t he see a boost button on the dashboard? He shoves aside Lalnable (earning another rude remark) to the front of the bus, sliding under it and breaking open a panel. The boost button isn’t lit up compared to the rest of the buttons and display.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Katie fiercely hisses, almost trodding on him with her boot for daring to tamper with the bus. Lalna raises his metal arm to protect his nose from being stomped on, annoyed that his attempt to help is met with violence.

“I’m fixing the boost, so don’t kick me!” Lalna snaps at her, sliding out from under to shoot her an indignant look before he digistructs tools. It’s not easy with a hand that he’s not entirely used to yet (especially with the uncalibrated low sensitivity of his fingers, for starters).

Determined to help (or else it’s roll over and simply die on Pandora), Lalna pulls on his goggles, grits his teeth and forces himself to make do. His shield’s gone missing, leaving him open to damage from her and anything else that decides to attack him. It’s probably in the back with Lalnable and Daisy, having been kicked under a cot by someone.

Despite his injury, Peculier also crawls over, picking up the tools that threaten to roll back towards the other passengers and wedges himself underneath the dashboard with him.

“Here, use this on that!” He hands Lalna wire cutters, pointing to a tangled cluster of red wires on Lalna’s left, just above his ear.

Deciding to take his advice, Lalna follows his instructions, finally dropping whatever he’s holding and linking two wires in a shower of yellow sparks that erupt between his trembling hands. “Hit it!” He shouts at Katie.

Before the last word’s left his mouth, the bus is already lurching forwards. The whole vehicle is shuddering more than ever as though it’s traveling over a gravel laden path, the wheels skidding, bouncing up and down.

Katie wrenches the wheel as it threatens to come apart, screws and bolts grinding and screeching under her hands. Her arms are aching, cramping from the effort of keeping the whole vehicle together, always moving even if it’s just one centimetre at a time, closer to their destination. Sweat stings her eyes; she doesn’t dare wipe her face or else she’ll lose control of the whole thing.

The back of Lalna’s head smacks the floor, causing him to slide out, both hands clutching at the site. Eyes tearing up, he’d been forced to let go of the wires that spring apart.

“No!” The boost starts to fade, the meter draining before Katie’s eyes.

Peculier has slammed into the bench, crying out in pain. Spotting the meter draining, he shoves off the bench, staggering onto his hands and knees. He trench crawls over to keep the dangling wires, hands trembling as he presses the ends together once more, keeping them that way even as his back is slammed against the dashboard.

“Peculier!” Daisy shouts from the back. She can’t see past Lalnable trying to keep her from rising but as the bus is bucked up and down, she spots what Peculier’s trying to do.

“Dear, I’m fine!” He grounds out, suppressing all the sounds of pain, even as he can feel bruises forming on bruises from how much he’s being thrown around like a rag doll in a washing machine.

With eyes full of tears and despite his head throbbing nastily, Lalna snatches up a roll of duct tape that’d fallen from the rack above his head and lunges for the wires. The bus tosses him up but he unwinds enough, tearing it off. He snatches the wires from Peculier, taping them together. The two take a second to share a victory grin when the wires remain connected.

A moment later, the bus roars, louder than ever, in their ears. They’re shaken loose from under the dashboard, both of them trying not to bang into anything else.

“Hold on!” Katie is trying to keep the bus on the road so that it doesn’t end up going over the edge and cause them all to plummet to their deaths. More than ever, she wishes she was wearing gloves.

The steering wheel is slippery with sweat, causing her palm to slide all over it. From the back of the bus, Matt sees her dilemma. He sidesteps Lalnable and Daisy, almost tripping over Peculier, Lalna and everything rolling around on the floor, stumbling towards her. He latches onto the steering wheel, his hands planted on top of her own.

Together, the two of them steer the bus onwards.

Matt adds his boot to the accelerator, pushing down as hard as he can. His shirt is sticky with sweat, leaving a wet patch on his back, chest and under his arms. Katie’s is in a similar condition, causing hers to stick to the driver’s seat.

Like before, the boost starts to give out when the top of the road is just in sight. The road drops down sharply, giving no indication of what lies beyond the drop.

“No, we’re almost there!” Lalna has since staggered upright after being hurriedly checked by Lalnable for lasting damage (he’d proclaimed none, returning to helping Daisy pick bits of glass out of her hair and dress).

Whatever hopes he might have felt (that everyone shared) about the bus making it to the top are dashed when it starts to strain, threatening to roll back down as its speed starts to plummet.

Grumbling about the lack of a warning in regards to boosting, Rythian finally pulls himself up out of the turret. At least nobody had been around to see him almost crack his head against the railing, or get stuck because because of the stupid fucking seat.

Huh, the bus has stopped boosting. Judging from the panicking sounds beneath him, they won’t make it up the hill without some sort of help.

He has a brilliant idea, hopping out of the turret and teleporting into the bus, startling everyone (who is not Katie) in there. His head almost bumps the roof, forcing him to stoop to avoid getting concussed.

“Rythian! I’m working here!” Lalnable snaps when Rythian almost trips over him from the bus hitting another rough patch on the road.

The back wheels are starting to spin wildly as the two couriers try to get it to keep going, the engine cycling between humming and roaring from their efforts.

“Sorry,” Rythian mutters. He grabs onto the luggage rack to avoid falling over, trying his best to keep out of the way and stepping on anything or anyone.

Katie shrugs a flummoxed Matt off of her. “I got this!” She’s finally straightened the bus out, like it matters much, seeing as Matt has turned around to spot Rythian.

He is staring at Rythian, his shotgun now aiming at Rythian’s face out of reflex. “What was-” _Teleporting Vault Hunters_ , what next? Rythian’s eyes coolly flick to the gun, then him, staring him down. Matt hastily lowers it.

“I can try to teleport the bus up to the top of the hill!” Rythian interrupts him, choosing not to say anything about it. There’s a more pressing issue at hand.

Given that the sounds at the bottom of the mountain are drawing closer and closer to them, everyone nods. Rythian closes his eyes; it’s worth a shot trying to teleport both the technical and the bus, plus passengers.

Something inside of him resists the idea of teleporting such useless hunks of junk and meatsacks but it’s so slight he might as well have ignored it altogether. His concentration feels out the outline of the vehicles, tracing over them (as familiar as the text of a book he knows by heart) until he can imagine them moving through space. It’s just like moving people. Surely, it can’t be that hard.

His teleporter flares white-hot against his hip to where he can feel it through the thin fabric of his pants before he opens his eyes and shoves _everything_ with his will towards the intended destination.

The bus (with the technical still trapped on top of it) gently lands on top of the hill.

Rythian puts his hands down, breathing hard. That hadn’t been as easy as he’d thought it would be but it had taken less effort than he’d anticipated. He tries not to preen when Lalna looks awed once more (only to look slightly green in the next second, causing Matt and Peculier to cautiously edge away from him).

Katie brakes before the bus can suddenly slide down the hill, her mind reeling from the teleport. Her lunch can stay in her stomach, thanks, and she refuses to get sick all over the dashboard and windscreen.

Beside her, Matt clutches his gun with the bones of his knuckles standing out, trying not to dry-heave. Lalnable absentmindedly doles out sick bags without looking up. Lalna and Matt take one each, just in case.

Unbeknownst to them, Larry Robert circles overhead on watch, firing at a technical that'd snuck past Will, Xephos and Honeydew. It boosts right up and over the gap in the side of the bus, not caring about flying off the mountain in the process; a bandit brandishes a gun at Matt, Rythian, Lalnable and Daisy.

In slow motion, Rythian wheels around, eyes widening, only to pop out of the way to avoid being shot in the back; he appears on top of the bus, firing slag rounds out of an assault rifle straight at the offenders and their ride.

Lalnable is already trying to shield Daisy, throwing an arm and half his body over her prone form. Matt’s shotgun is still in his hands, already rising to fire. Time resumes the moment a disgruntled Daisy yanks it out of his grip, shoves Lalnable aside and fires it straight into the maliciously grinning bandit’s face before tossing the Tediore gun out of the bus.

It explodes against another bandit. Their pained scream rends the air as hot metal and plastic burns them. Larry Robert flies under the technical, despawning both guns to heft the slagged technical and its remaining occupants back down to ground level.

“Good job, Larry!” Lalna praises. Larry Robert’s eye rolls in its socket, the blue color flashing in the sunlight. It might have been Lalna’s imagination but his robot might have shot him a thumbs-up.

Everyone (but Katie) turns to stare at Daisy. With a satisfied grin and a pink face, she just settles back down on the cot, dusting her hands. Peculier fans himself with a hand.

Matt catches the newly digistructed shotgun, not sure how he should react to well, everything that’s just happened. This day qualifies for his and Katie’s weirdest yet. The other time was when Katie got to pet wild skags that had somehow been domesticated by a fast-talking biologist, her mysterious assistant, and a blond, scary lady accompanied by a giant, screechy rakk.

Katie slams a frustrated hand on the dashboard when it flashes ‘low fuel’ at her. “Come on! There’s not that far left to go!”

That motion causes the bus to start to roll down the hill; it is at this precise moment that Katie discovers that the brakes refuse to work for the same reason the bus lost so much speed earlier.

Everybody (minus Lalnable, who is gritting his teeth and wondering what he ever did to deserve being surrounded by morons) in the bus starts to scream once they realise the bus is going faster than it should.

“Brake!” Lalna screams over everyone’s voices (no easy feat to achieve when everybody is screaming as loudly as possible). “We’re going to crash!”

“The brakes aren’t working!” Katie shrieks because that’s _obvious_.

“We know!” Matt screams back at her, despawning his gun to hang onto the back of her seat. Her back crushes his fingers. He yells and flails, only realising he’s just let go and consequently falls back into Rythian (who has teleported back inside), knocking the both off them off their feet.

Lalnable’s medical equipment, loose objects (like the roll of duct tape and Lalna’s tools), bags and the empty sacks of mail are tossed into the air, to be thrown around the bus when it hits the ground. None of them are looking forward to the landing.

Far away, Will has a gut feeling that he’s needed. The last of the pirates are already falling back, as well as the bandits. Their leaders have already called off the spat to recoup and reschedule for a day when Vault Hunters and couriers won’t interfere with the battle over land.

Nanosounds drives up to Will with a red splattered face and a shit-eating grin that makes Will refrain from commenting on anything about ‘her new look’ or politely suggesting a shower.

In the distance, Xephos and Honeydew are looting bodies. Honeydew is busy shoving all the money he can get his hands on into his beard. Xephos has an armful of guns that they’re going to trade in for even more money.

Will sighs and decides that the bus will be fine, or so he hopes. Rythian and Lalna are already on the case.

The bus meets the bottom of the hill with an almighty crash that shakes the whole vehicle, causing any loose metal plates to be flung off.

At last, Katie slams on the brakes, bringing the bus to a screeching halt. She sits up, throwing a glance behind her. Everybody but Daisy has stopped screaming. Whatever's in the air falls with thuds onto the floor.

Lalna is sprawled awkwardly across Rythian’s lap. Rythian himself is almost squashing Lalnable, who looks less than thrilled about it. After a moment, he sharply jabs Rythian in the side with an elbow. Rythian grunts, struggling to get up, his long legs thrown across the aisle.

Peculier has managed to shield Daisy from the three, albeit at the cost of Matt sporting one bloody nose from when his face had collided with Peculier’s elbow on the way down. His shield charge had been drained from a bunch of loose bags flying right into him a few seconds earlier.

“I am so sorry, here, let me-” Peculier whips out a multi-coloured spotted handkerchief and starts to dab away at Matt’s pained face.

“It’s fine,” Matt wheezes, tilting his head back and picking himself up off the spare cot which he’d been awkwardly thrown onto. Peculier draws back, still looking guilty.

“My dear, what’s wrong-” He’s turned to Daisy.

Daisy is still screaming. She stops to breathe hard through her nose, her face contorted with pain. She mouths something inaudible, gasping it between every breath, hands twisted into her dress.

“What’d she say?” Lalna asks, looking glassy-eyed from pain. Rythian suspects he’d hit his head again at some point, probably against the window this time.

“I said the baby’s coming!” Daisy’s harsh, pained voice snaps Lalnable out of his stupor.

He frees himself from underneath Rythian and crawls over and on top of the bags scattered on the floor, not caring if he looks undignified. “Not here, we’re not at the clinic!” He gives her an exasperated look, sounding panicked.

“Tell that to the baby!” She snaps at him, looking haughty despite the contractions that are growing stronger and painful with every passing second.

“I’m a surgeon, not a midwife-”

“Hold on, we’re almost there!” Katie revs the bus. To her relief, it doesn’t stall, taking off down the road.

Everyone who happens to be standing or getting to their feet is sent flying back. A bag slides right into Rythian's shin, causing him to yell and shove Lalna off his lap (who also yells as his flesh elbow smacks into the metal frame of the bench).

Her map says they’re at the Dust and if she ignores the usual route by taking several courier known shortcuts through the spiderants and through the hills, she can shave down their time by half.

“That way!” Beside her, Matt (fortunate enough to have grabbed a luggage rack to avoid stepping on Lalna) points, throwing flecks of blood across the windscreen. “We can be there in five minutes if you turn here-”

The two Vault Hunters trapped in the back are unable to stop themselves from witnessing the miracle of childbirth (which proceeded to scar them for life).

\--

“That’ll be about a hundred for the new plating, plus repairs to the brakes and everything else,” Strippin calmly concludes, straightening up and wiping his grease-covered hands on a rag. A head taller than Katie, he nonetheless, tries to sound as polite as possible when Benji shoots him a sharp look as a reminder.

“Charge it to Pandora’s Postal Service under ‘damages’,” Katie tells him after deciding not to disagree since she knows nothing about vehicles.

It’d been lucky that the two had even agreed to turn up on short notice to repair the bus. The Rail Bros. had also known the Vault Hunters, whose word held some weight with the two.

“Will do.” Strippin nods at Benji, who pulls out an ECHO device to forward the costs to Toby.

With that, Katie tries not to imagine Toby’s dismayed expression at getting such a high bill especially after he’d told them to try to bring the bus back home in one piece. Well, she can always tell him about what precisely had happened. Matt can be her witness.

“Is that everything?” Benji glances at her, then at the newly repaired bus parked outside Lalnable’s clinic.

“The technical could use a tune-up,” Rythian says, emerging from the inside of the clinic. Lalna is following him.

“I thought we just tuned it up a while ago?” Strippin frowns, then shakes his head, grinning. “We’ll check it out anyway, considering what you lot get up to.”

“Without hopefully seeing the need to blow up my ride,” Rythian pointedly adds.

Strippin raises both eyebrows, clearly pretending the idea has never occurred to him. As he walks off with Benji in tow, Katie has to refrain from staring at Strippin’s behind. Matt on the other hand, is doing the opposite without trying to be any less obvious about it.

Noticing this, Lalna sidles up to Matt, whispering, “If you like that, you should see Ravs’ one.”

“How’d these dents get here?” Benji mumbles when he sees said dents on the underside of the technical from when it’d landed on top of the bus. Strippin glances from the bus to the technical before decided it’s not any of their business, so long as they get it tuned up.

“I have and- hang on, _you_ seem awfully familiar.” Matt glances at Rythian, forgetting about agreeing with Lalna. Rythian hesitates for a second before shaking his head.

“I doubt we’ve met. You must have me mistaken for someone else,” He firmly says. Matt frowns a little.

There’s a particular memory attached to one of his first delivery runs. It’s of a kilt-wearing man flagging him down by the side of the road. Beside him, two others are lounging around on a technical.

Under the hawk-like gazes of his two companions (a featureless Vault Hunter with a sniper rifle strapped to their back and another, wearing a purple scarf and electric blue eyes so very like Rythian’s), Matt had agreed to deliver a letter to Oasis for the low price of a single bottle of rakk ale.

The rakk ale had been ridiculously strong and much more potent than both of them had expected. Katie had agreed as much after only one sip with a sour face, which had ended their brief experiment with alcohol.

Rythian is already striding back inside the clinic before Matt can inquire any further. Lalna shrugs, apparently used to his evasiveness. A Nanosounds with wet hair (fresh from the shower) opens the door for him. He steps past her. She makes her way over to the two couriers. The two can’t help but stare when she approaches.

“Excuse me, you two sound awfully familiar.” She shifts on the spot once she’s by them, scrutinising them with an unusual intensity.

Katie and Matt have never met a Siren in person and while she barely comes up to their shoulders, the tattoos are painfully obvious, a series of purple marks running down the left side of her body and curving around her eyes, nose and mouth. They stare at her. Evidently embarrassed, she fidgets.

“Jiǔtóu?” Matt tentatively asks, the sound of Nanosounds’ voice jogging an old series of memories. All he has to do is impress a bit of static here and there on it- Katie’s eyes widen at the same time as his.

“Trellimar? Elora?” Nanosounds blinks, also having reached the same conclusion.

“It is you!” Matt, Katie and Nanosounds all let out high-pitched shrieks, starting to excitedly talking over one another. Lalna jumps as Strippin and Benji only glance up before going straight back to work, shaking their heads.

“Oh my god, it really is you!”

“I can’t believe it-”

“I didn’t think it was you two at first-”

“You are so cute!” This comes from Katie. Nanosounds stares at her, then goes crimson like she’s never been complimented before by another woman.

“Those are some sweet tattoos,” Matt adds, gesturing to them. “Been thinking of getting one myself, but I have no clue what.” Katie refrains from pointing out that Matt wouldn’t probably be able to handle the pain and that he just probably wants to impress Nanosounds.

“They are pretty sweet,” Nanosounds agrees, flashing him a grin, her face still red. Unnoticed, Lalna slowly backs away into the clinic, sensing that it’s a private moment.

“Have you met anyone else yet?” Katie excitedly asks.

“No, surprisingly! I’d definitely recognise other people’s voices but only if they had a decent connection to begin with,” Nanosounds laments.

“I see. Maybe if everyone is on Pandora, we could do a little meet-up sometime?” Matt wonders out loud, his eyes wistful. “Anyway, you should join the campaign again. We miss you.” He shakes off the wistfulness to beam at her.

“I’d love to! When I can fit it in between my Vault Hunting and some other...stuff,” Nanosounds says, pulling a dour face.

“We know that feeling,” Katie sympathetically says with a laugh, knowing what Nanosounds means.

“I didn’t think I’d ever meet you two like this, to be honest.” Nanosounds nods her head at the courier’s outfits. She smiles, though. “It’s still good to meet you two, but wow, you two weren’t kidding about being couriers!”

“But you’re a Vault Hunter! That’s so _cool_ ,” Katie gushes.

Lalnable sticks his head outdoors. “When you’re done being nuisances outside, perhaps you'd like to come in and sign off your delivery?” He asks, sounding annoyed that he has to come and fetch them (after having told Lalna off for not doing so on his way back in).

Matt, Nanosounds and Katie troop indoors, following Lalnable into one of the private rooms at the very back of the clinic.

Katie passes Nanosounds a business card when Matt is looking the other way. “My number,” She whispers, winking at a reddening Nanosounds. Nanosounds pockets the piece of paper before anybody can ask her what it is, trying to will her face to stop _that_.

Will Strife emerges from the kitchen with a mug of coffee, just in time to pull Matt aside from the other two. “A moment, if you please,” He murmurs once the other two have walked off.

“Strife!” Matt immediately recognises him. He’s still giddy from having met Nanosounds in person and can’t keep himself from grinning. Will chooses not to ask.

“Trell. How’s your nose?” Will raises a concerned eyebrow at him. There are bloodstains on Matt’s shirt from the blood that he hadn’t managed to wipe off in time, but that’s the least of his worries.

“It’s better.” Matt waves a dismissive hand, ignoring the way Will’s eyes drop to the marks on his shirt. “Fancy meeting you here. What sort of gig are you on this time?”

“A spot of Vault Hunting.” Will shrugs. Matt guesses that he doesn't want to bore him with the specifics and Will doesn’t quite want to elaborate. “Can you do me a favor?” He drops his voice lower.

“Sure, I'm open to almost anything after you helped us out twice.” Matt regards him with a fond look.

Encouraged, Will pulls out a large brown padded envelope (sealed with official looking Maliwan coloured tape) from his inventory and holds it out. “I’d like you to post this off-world for me.”

Matt takes it, scanning the address. “I see it’s going to one of the Maliwan branches. I’ll flag it as priority once I get back to the office.”

“Thanks, that’d be mighty helpful. They’ll pay for the postage and everything, by the way.” Relieved that Matt is going to help him out, Will visibly relaxes, smiling at him for the first time.

Matt tucks it into his inventory. “If you’re in need of a quick-paying job, we always have some one-off deliveries if you're interested.”

“We’ll see. Vault Hunting is taking up most of my time these days, but some extra jobs wouldn’t hurt.” Not that Will ever plans on taking up more courier jobs, but it’s always nice to have something to fall back onto if the Vault Hunting doesn’t work out in the end.

“Just call up Toby and tell him Trell sent you,” Matt tells him.

“We should go and see what Lalnable wants. I’d also appreciate it if you didn’t tell anyone I sent anything.”

“You have my word,” Matt reassures him. Will coughs, indicating that they should catch up with the others and that this conversation or exchange definitely didn’t happen, in case that wasn’t clear to Matt (it was).

The two enter the room that the others are in, taking care not to draw too much attention to themselves.

In her arms, Daisy is bearing a tiny, fast asleep bundle swaddled in a brand-new blanket. She looks exhausted but pleased, reclining on all the pillows (a few stolen from the other room by Peculier when Lalnable wasn’t looking). Peculier spots Matt and steers him over next to Katie.

“Your delivery was a resounding success,” Daisy tells the two couriers, smiling at them. “I’d like to name the baby after you two.”

There’s a beat as Matt and Katie absorb her words. “No, no, it’s our pleasure!” Matt reacts by stepping back and shaking his head, looking embarrassed. “Besides, my name isn’t my real name, so I doubt you’d want to name your baby after an alias.”

“I agree with Trell. I doubt you’d want your baby being called ‘Trell-Elora’.” Katie grins grows (today is quite possibly the best day ever), secretly thrilled that someone would want to name their baby after her.

“Ah, we thought that might happen. We talked and just in case…” Peculier gestures Lalnable over. He sighs but drifts over, still somehow looking annoyed in spite of the baby being born.

“You are not calling the baby ‘Lalnable’,” Lalnable grumpily points out once he’s close enough.

“Call the baby ‘Hector’ instead!” Lalna brightly volunteers from where he’s standing with the other Vault Hunters. Lalnable freezes and slowly turns to glare at Lalna with a look of ‘you did not just fucking do that’.

“ _Hector_?” Nanosounds stares at Lalnable, only to snicker into her hand. Rythian’s mouth twitches under his scarf. Will carefully keeps his face blank, sipping his coffee (only smiling then so Lalnable can’t see it).

“That’s his other name!” Lalna appears to see no problem with freely giving out Lalnable’s middle name.

“ _No_ ,” Lalnable slowly says, evidently trying not to launch himself across the room and beat Lalna up for revealing his middle name in front of a crowd.

“I think it’s a great name for a baby!” Lalna brightly insists, oblivious to Lalnable’s anger.

“I refuse to put that name on the birth certificate,” Lalnable grinds out, almost gnashing the words. He wishes he had a clipboard he could throw at Lalna. Unfortunately, the only one in the room is clipped to the end of Daisy’s bed.

“If you can’t decide, why don’t we just make a suggestions box?” Will proposes, deciding to step in before Lalna can make things any worse by revealing another piece of information he shouldn’t be, like Lalnable’s other middle name or something. “We can even put it into the Crooked Caber and let people submit names. The lovely couple can decide then.”

“That sounds like a fantastic idea!” Peculier turns to face Daisy with an approving grin. She returns it. The baby stirs, yawning, tiny mouth an ‘o’ shape. Almost everyone’s hearts melt.

Lalnable suddenly smirks. He draws closer to Peculier and Daisy, whispering to them. The two give eager nods. Suspecting the worst, Lalna’s face falls as Lalnable turns to the black medical screen mounted on the wall behind him.

“For those of you who missed it, here is what went down on the bus.” Lalnable turns on his ECHO device to broadcast the birth in high-definition.

“Look, here comes the baby!” Peculier coos as Daisy starts to crack up.

Rythian buries his face in his hands, pulling his scarf up over his head to hide his mortification. Will Strife almost chokes on his coffee. Nanosounds goes white, her eyes a comical size. Lalna proceeds to turn an impressive shade of pink before copying Rythian, using his hands since he doesn’t have a scarf.

Rooted to the spot by the sight of all that blood on the screen, a stunned Matt drops the ECHO device he’d been holding up to get the signature from Peculier and Daisy for a delivery well done. It clatters and slides under the bed.

Katie retrieves it with a huff. Clearly, Vault Hunters have never been around to see a baby being born before. It’s not as mentally scarring as they make it out to be. Lalnable appears to share the sentiment, judging by the impressed look he throws her way for not even batting an eyelid.

\--

“I still think ‘Billy’ should have been picked,” Nanosounds grumbles, but otherwise, is content to join in once everyone raises their mugs to toast Sanctuary Hole’s newest residents.

“It should have been Chrimon,” Honeydew laments, wiping away a single tear before taking a giant gulp of his drink. Xephos pats him on the back, secretly glad that that name hadn't been picked or else Honeydew’s ego might have exploded.

Turps is salty that the baby isn’t named after him. After downing three mugs of Ravs’ best moonshine, he appears to have changed his mind.

“To Clucky!” He shouts to an uproar. He is now giving a drunk speech about the miracles of life and how ‘Sanctuary Hole will help bring up a fine child as it takes a village to raise one’. Nobody is really listening to him but he doesn’t care, having hit his stride early on.

The man with a grey pallor to his skin watches Turps drunkenly ramble from the sidelines, politely sipping his martini. The hot pink umbrella in the martini (as per his request, despite the glasses-wearing bartender giving him an odd look as they made it) is gently pushed aside to avoid impaling himself in the face.

He checks that his beaglepuss glasses are still on, but otherwise, remains expressionless and half-hidden by the shadows in the bar. So far, nobody has seen fit to point out that he doesn’t belong. He is after all, capable of not drawing attention when he wants to remain inconspicuous.

Not that he plans to cause trouble tonight, wanting to keep a low profile. There’s a vacant building he wants to buy and he's only here to get an idea of what sort of man the meriff is, to figure out the easy way to go about persuading him to let him set up shop.

Ravs might have noticed him at some point but didn’t see any harm in letting him stay. That said, Ravs is now trying to gently dissuade Nilesy from giving a knitted hat with cat ears to the lucky couple with the baby. Never mind, Nilesy has already strode off upstairs to give his gift.

On the second floor of the Crooked Caber, everybody is taking turns to hold the baby under Daisy’s firm insistence that the baby should meet all the new neighbors. The camera Peculier dug up from somewhere is constantly clicking away.

The second Lalna had met the baby up close, he kept making clucking noises and faces at them, earning vapid grins and feeble attempts to copy the sounds whenever he did so.

Maybe this is what had contributed to the choice of name; Lalnable watches him with growing annoyance. Finally, having had enough, he moves to drag a disappointed Lalna away so someone else can finally have their turn cradling the baby.

Well, it could have been a worse name. Peculier and Daisy had confided to Lalnable some of the other ‘strange’ choices. Considering the couple’s names, the one they picked isn't _too_ embarrassing. It kind of fits the strange theme going on.

It also hasn't escaped his notice that Peculier’s full name on the birth certificate doesn't quite match what he's called by Daisy.

“And this is why you never let Vault Hunters name anything,” is all that he remarks. Lalna sulks, glancing over his shoulder at the others. “I’m just glad you didn't squash the baby, honestly-”

Annoyed, Lalna trips him and sends him almost flying head-first down the stairs.

Zoeya is manhandling a terrified Rythian’s arms into position so the baby can be transferred over from one besotted Will Strife.

In the guest room, tucked into their beds but too restless to sleep (despite having a long, lonely drive back ahead of them), Matt and Katie turn on their ECHO devices.

They’d spent almost the whole night being treated as heroes, recounting the adventure, catching up with Nanosounds, and babysitting as well as narrowly escaping being roped into becoming godparents thanks to Turps’ suggestion.

\- // TrellimarAleath is no longer idle. //-

\- // EloraGalanodel is no longer idle. //-

TrellimarAleath: You’ll never guess what happened.

EloraGalanodel: It’s amazing!

CamBuckland: What is?

SherlockHulmes: Does it beat the news of my boss not seeing that bandit anymore?

Falk: Did you find Skagzilla?

LobenTrogdor: Don’t keep us hanging! Let’s hear it!

TrellimarAleath: We met somebody very special today.

EloraGalanodel: Make that two special somebodies!

\- // JiǔtóuZhìjīJīng is no longer idle. //-

JiǔtóuZhìjīJīng: Guess who’s back for the time being?

\--

TO: MALIWAN R & D RESEARCH HEAD.

DELIVERED BY: B.M. & L.N.

PRIORITY DELIVERY APPROVED BY: S.T.T.

DELIVERY SEARCHED AND APPROVED BY: L.M.

ENCLOSED: One report draft to be read, approved and signed by one K.D. and returned ASAP to Will Strife, of Strife Solutions so that corrections and errors can be resolved.

**Author's Note:**

> this chapter clocks in at around ~53,000 words and is pretty much meant to be a fun, standalone fic. the plan is to move onto another btb fic (featuring nilesy and lomadia), then onto either chapter one of hatfilms btb fic or teep’s btb fic. many thanks to doublearrows and teagstime for helping edit.
> 
> i wanted to write this fic specifically to expand on a whole bunch of characters who haven’t yet shown up in ‘tlvh’ as well as introducing a couple others. 
> 
> SherlockHulmes and Arsenal are returning characters from ‘how to influence bandits and beyond them’. if you haven’t read that fic yet, I recommend doing so since it is referenced and serves to fill in some of the gaps in this one.
> 
> Matt (aka, Trellimar from high rollers or batmanmarch) is the mailman from the first chapter of that fic! Katie (Elora from High Rollers or littlenommer), Toby (SoTotallyToby) and CaffCast are pretty much new characters. There’s also the return of Martyn, Nanosounds and Trottimus, plus a bunch of other cameos.
> 
> i don’t plan to do anything else with SOI regarding this au since that’s another can of worms aside from wanting to include those references as an honorary nod to the series. if we’re talking about the high rollers crew however, it’s very likely that they’ll all meet up in the future! in fact, some of them have already met up; they just didn’t realize it at the time.
> 
> different parts of this fic take place at different points in the borderlandscast timeline, which is intentional. have fun piecing all that together! this fic also references other ‘btb’ fic. the last part of the fic happens between ‘i.o.u. one new arm’ and chapter seven of ‘tlvh’.
> 
> there’s not much to say in the ramble this time. the doodles are over [here](http://borderlandscast.tumblr.com/tagged/beyond-the-borderlands%3A-nrssshgnsskacd), drawn by the tremendous siins! as usual, thank you for reading and your continued support!


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